PIGEON   COVE,   CAPE   ANN. 


>  FRANC iS  E.  SUMMER 

NOOKS  AND  COKNEKS 


OF  THE 


NEW  ENGLAND  COAST. 

By  SAMUEL  ADAMS  DRAKE, 

AUTHOB  OF 

"OLD  LANDMARKS  OF  BOSTON,"  "HISTORIC  FIELDS  AND  MANSIONS  OF  MIDDLESEX,1'  &o. 


WITH  NUMEROUS  ILLUSTRATIONS. 


NEW  YORK: 
HARPER  &  BROTHERS,  PUBLISHERS, 

FRANKLIN    SQUARE. 
1875. 


Entered  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1875,  by 

HARPER    &    BROTHERS, 
In  the  Office  of  the  Librarian  of  Congress,  at  Washington. 


Inscribed  bn  permission, 


AND  WITH  SENTIMENTS  OF  HIGH  RESPECT, 


TO 


HENRY  WADSWOKTH    LONGFELLOW. 


%M|  Washington 

MBB''''*"  E- •        XA 


PREFACE. 


this  line,  if  it  takes 
summer"" 

S.  A.  D. 

TUNE,  1875. 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  I. 

NEW    ENGLAND    OF   THE    ANCIENTS. 

Norumbega  River  and  City. — Early  Discoverers,  and  Maps  of  New  England. — Mode  of  taking 
Possession  of  new  Countries. — Cruel  Usage  of  Intruders  by  the  English. — Penobscot  B*iy. — 
Character  of  first  Emigrants  to  New  England. — Is  Friday  unlucky? , Page  17 

CHAPTER  II. 

MOUNT    DESERT    ISLAND. 

About  Islands.— Champlain's  Discovery. — Mount  Desert  Range. — Somesville,  and  the  Neighbor 
hood. — Colony  of  Madame  De  Guercheville. — Descent  of  Sir  S.  Argall. — Treasure-trove. — 
Shell-heaps. — South-west  Harbor. — The  natural  Sea-wall. — Islands  off  Somes's  Sound 27 

CHAPTER  III. 

CHRISTMAS    ON    MOUNT    DESERT. 

Excursion  to  Bar  Harbor. — Green  Mountain. — Eagle  Lake. — Island  Nomenclature. — Porcupine 
Islands. — Short  Jaunts  by  the  Shore. — Schooner  Head.  —  Spouting  Caves. — Sea  Aquaria. — 
Audubon  and  Agassiz. — David  Wasgatt  Clark. — F.  E.  Church  and  the  Artists. — Great  Head. 
— Baye  Fran9oise. — Mount  Desert  Rock. — Value  of  natural  Sea-marks. — Newport  Mount 
ain,  and  the  Way  to  Otter  Creek. — The  Islesmen.— North-east  Harbor. — The  Ovens. — The 
Gregoires. — Henrietta  d'Orleans. — Yankee  Curiosity 40 

CHAPTER  IV. 

CASTINE. 

Pentagoet. — A  Fog  in  Penobscot  Bay.— Rockland. — The  Muscongus  Grant. — Colonial  Society. — 
Generals  Knox  and  Lincoln. — Camden  Hills. — Belfast  and  the  River  Penobscot. — Brigadier's 
Island. — Disappearance  of  the  Salmon. — Approach  to  Castine. — Fort  George. — Penobscot 
Expedition. — Sir  John  Moore.— Capture  of  General  Wadsworth. — His  remarkable  Escape. — 
Rochambeau's  Proposal. — La  Pey rouse 58 

CHAPTER  V. 

CASTINE — continued. 

Old  Fort  Pentagoet. — Stephen  Grindle's  Windfall.— Cob-money. — The  Pilgrims  at  Penobscot. — 
Isaac  de  Razilly. — D'Aulnay  Charnisay. — La  Tour. — Descent  of  Sedgwick  and  Leverett. — 
Capture  of  Pentagoet,  and  Imprisonment  of  Chambly.— Colbert. — Baron  Castin. — The  younger 


10  CONTENTS. 

Castin  kidnaped. — Capuchins  and  Jesuits. — Intrigues  of  De  Main  tenon  and  Pere  Lachaise. — 
Burial-ground  of  Castine. — About  the  Lobster. — Where  is  Down  East? Page  73 

CHAPTER  VI. 

PEMAQUID     POINT. 

New  Harbor. — Wayside  Manners. — British  Repulse  at  New  Harbor. — Porgee  Factory. — Process 
of  converting  the  Fish  into  Oil. — Habits  of  the  Mackerel. — Weymouth's  Visit  to  Pemaquid. 
— Champlain  again. — Popham  Colony. — Cotton  Mather  on  new  Settlements. — English  vs. 
French  Endurance. — L'Ordre  de  Bon  Temps. — Samoset. — Fort  Frederick. — Resume  of  the 
English  Settlement  and  Forts.— John  Nelson.— Capture  of  Fort  William  Henry.— D'Jberville, 
the  knowing  One. — Colonel  Dunbar  at  Pemaquid. — Shell-heaps  of  Damariscotta. — Disappear 
ance  of  the  native  Oyster  in  New  England 87 

CHAPTER  VII. 

MONHEGAN     ISLAND. 

Scenes  on  a  Penobscot  Steamer. — The  Islanders. — Weymouth's  Anchorage. — Monhegan  de 
scribed. — Combat  between  the  Enterprise  and  Boxer, —  Lieutenant  Burrows 102 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

FROM    WELLS   TO    OLD    YORK. 

Wells. —  John  Wheelwright. —  George  Burroughs. —  On  the  Beach. —  Sniffings  of  the  Sands. — 
What  they  produce. — Ingenuity  of  the  Crow. — The  Beach  as  a  High-road. — Popular  Super 
stitions. — Ogunquit. — Bald  Head  Cliff. — Wreck  of  the  Isidore. — Kennebunkport. — Cape  Ned- 
dock. — The  Nubble. — Captains  Gosnold  and  Pring. — Moon-light  on  the  Beach 109 

CHAPTER  IX. 

AGAMENTICUS,  THE    ANCIENT    CITY. 

Mount  Agamenticus. — Basque  Fishermen. — Sassafras. — The  Long  Sands. — Sea-weed  and  Shell 
fish. —  Foot -prints. —  Old  York  Annals. —  Sir  Ferdinando  Gorges. — York  Meeting-house. — 
Handkerchief  Moody. — Parson  Moody. — David  Sewall.— Old  Jail.— Garrison  Houses,  Scot 
land  Parish 123 

CHAPTER  X. 


York  Bridge.— Poor  Sally  Cutts.  —  Fort  M 'Clary.—  Sir  William  Pepperell.—  Louisburg  and 
Fontenoy. — Gerrish's  Island. — Francis  Champernowne. — Islands  belonging  to  Kittery. — John 
Langdon. — Jacob  Sheaffe. — Washington  at  Kittery 141 

CHAPTER  XI. 

THE    ISLES    OF    SHOALS. 

De  Monts  sees  them. — Smith's  and  Levett's  Account. — Cod-fishery  in  the  sixteenth  Century. — 
Sail  down  the  Piscataqua. — The  Isles. —  Derivation  of  the  Name. — Jeffrey's  Ledge. — Star 
Island.  —  Little  Meeting  -house. —  Character  of  the  Islesmen. —  Island  Grave-yards. — Betty 


CONTENTS.  11 

Moody's  Hole.— Natural  Gorges. —Under  the  Cliffs.— Death  of  Miss  Underhill.— Story  of  her 
Life. — Boon  Island. — Wreck  of  the  Nottingham. — Fish  and  Fishermen Page  153 

CHAPTER  XII. 

THE    ISLES    OF    SHOALS — Continued. 

Excursion  to  Smutty  Nose. — Piracy  in  New  England  Waters. — Blackbeard. — Thomas  Morton's 
Banishment. — Religious  Liberty  vs.  License. —  Custom  of  the  May-pole. —  Samuel  Haley. — 
Spanish  Wreck  on  Smutty  Nose. — Graves  of  the  Unknown. — Terrible  Tragedy  on  the  Island. 
— Appleclore. — Its  ancient  Settlement. — Smith's  Cairn. — Duck  Island. — Londoner's. — Thomas 
B.  Laighton. — Mrs.  Thaxter. — Light-houses  in  1793. — White  Island. — Story  of  a  Wreck.  175 

CHAPTER  XIII. 

NEWCASTLE    AND    NEIGHBORHOOD. 

The  Way  to  the  Island. — The  Pool.— Ancient  Ships. — Old  House. — Town  Charter  and  Records. 
— Influence  of  the  Navy-yai'd. — Fort  Constitution. — Little  Harbor. — Captain  John  Mason. — 
— The  Wentworth  House. — The  Portraits. — The  Governors  Wentworth  and  their  Wives. — 
Baron  Steuben ... 19G 

CHAPTER  XIV. 

SALEM   VILLAGE,  AND  '92. 

The  Witch-ground. — Antiquity  of  Witchcraft. — First  Case  in  New  England.— Curiosities  of  Witch 
craft. — Rebecca  Nurse. — Beginning  of  Terrorism  at  Salem  Village. — Humors  of  the  Appari 
tions. — General  Putnam's  Birthplace. — What  may  be  seen  in  Danvers 208 

CHAPTER  XV. 

A    WALK    TO    WITCH    HILL. 

Salem  in  1692. — Birthplace  of  Hawthorne.— Old  Witch  House. — William  Stoughton,  Governor. — 
Witch  Hill.— A  Leaf  from  History 220 

CHAPTER  XVI. 

MAEBLEHEAD. 

The  Rock  of  Marblehead. — The  Harbor  and  Neck. — Chat  with  the  Light-keeper. — Decline  of 
the  Fisheries. — Fishery  in  the  olden  Time. — Early  Annals  of  Marblehead. — Walks  about  the 
Town. — Crooked  Lanes  and  antique  Houses. — The  Water-side. — The  Fishermen. — How  the 
Town  looked  in  the  Past. — Plain-spoken  Clergymen  and  lawless  Parishioners. — Anecdotes. — 
Jeremiah  Lee  and  his  Mansion. — The  Town-house. — Chief-justice  Story.  —  St.  Michael's 
Church. — Elbridge  Gerry. — The  old  Ironsides  of  the  Sea. —  General  John  Glover. — Flood 
Ireson's,  Oakum  Bay. — Fort  Sewall. — Escape  of  the  Constitution  Frigate. — Duel  of  the  Chesa 
peake  and  Shannon. — Old  Burial-ground. — The  Grave-digger. — Perils  of  the  Fishery 228 

CHAPTER  XVII. 

PLYMOUTH. 

At  the  American  Mecca. — Court  Street. — Pilgrim  Hall  and  Pilgrim  Memorials. — Sargent's  Pic 
ture  of  the  "  Landing." — Relics  of  the  Mayflower. — First  Duel  in  New  England.— Old  Colony 


12  CONTENTS. 

Seal. — The  "Compact." — First  Execution  in  Plymouth. —  Old  "Body  of  Laws." — Pilgrim 
Chronicles. — View  from  Burial  Hill. — The  Harbor. — Names  of  Plymouth. — Plymouth,  En 
gland. — Lord  Nelson's  Generosity. — Plymouth  the  temporary  Choice  of  the  Pilgrims. — The 
Indian  Plague. — Indian  Superstition. — Who  was  first  at  Plymouth? — De  Monts  and  Cham- 
plain. — Champlain's  Voyages  in  New  England. — French  Pilgrims  make  the  first  Landing. — 
"Why  the  Natives  were  hostile  to  the  Pilgrims  of  1620. — Confusion  among  old  Writers  about 
Plymouth. — Among  the  Tombstones  of  Burial  Hill. — The  Pilgrims'  Church-fortress. — What  a 
Dutchman  saw  here  in  1627. — Military  Procession  to  Meeting. — Ancient  Church  Customs. — 
Puritans,  Separatists,  and  Brownists. — Flight  and  Political  Ostracism  of  the  Pilgrims. — Their 
form  of  Worship. — First  Church  of  Salem. — Plymouth  founded  on  a  Principle Page  261 

CHAPTER  XVIII. 

PLYMOUTH,  CLARK'S  ISLAND,  AND  DUXBURY. 

Let  us  walk  in  Leyden  Street. — The  way  Plymouth  was  built. — Governor  Bradford's  Corner. — 
Fragments  of  Family  History. — How  Marriage  became  a  civil  Act. — The  Common -house. — 
John  Oldham's  Punishment. — The  Allyne  House. — James  Otis  and  his  Sister  Mercy. — James 
Warren. — Cole's  Hill,  and  its  obliterated  Graves. — Plymouth  Rock. — True  Date  of  the  "Land 
ing." — Christmas  in  Plymouth,  and  Bradford's  Joke. — Pilgrim  Toleration. — Samoset  surprises 
Plymouth. — The  Entry  of  Massasoit. — First  American  Congress. — To  Clark's  Island. — Wat 
son's  House. — Election  Rock. — The  Party  of  Discovery. — Duxbury. — Captains  Hill  and  Miles 
Standish. — John  Alden. — "Why  don't  you  speak  for.  yourself  ?" — Historical  Iconoclasts. — 
Celebrities  of  Duxbury. — Winslow  and  Acadia. —  Colonel  Church.  —  The  Dartmouth  In 
dians /..  283 

CHAPTER  XIX. 

PROYINCETOWN. 

Cape  Cod  a  Terra  incognita. — Appearance  of  its  Surface.  —Historical  Fragments. — The  Pilgrims' 
first  Landing. — New  England  Washing-day. — De  Poutrincourt's  Fight  with  Natives. — Province- 
town  described. — Cape  Names. — Portuguese  Colony. — Cod  and  Mackerel  Fishery. — Cod-fish 
Aristocracy. — Matt  Prior  and  Lent.— Beginning  of  Whaling. — Mad  Montague. — The  Desert. — 
Cranberry  Culture. — The  moving  Sand-hills. — Disappearance  of  ancient  Forests. — The  Beach. 
— Race  Point. — Huts  of  Refuge. — Ice  Blockade  of  1874-75. — Wreck  of  the  Giovanni. — Phys 
ical  Aspects  of  the  Cape  Shores.— Old  Wreck  at  Orleans 304 

CHAPTER  XX. 

NANTUCKET. 

The  old  Voyagers  again. — Derivation  of  the  Name  of  Nantucket. — Sail  from  Wood's  Hole  to  the 
Island. — Vineyard  Sound. — Walks  in  Nantucket  Streets. — Whales,  Ships,  and  Whaling. — 
Nantucket  in  the  Revolution. — Cruising  for  Whales. — The  Camels. — Nantucket  Sailors: — 
Loss  of  Ship  Essex. — Town-crier.— Island  History.— Quaker  Sailors. — Thomas  Mayhew. — 
Spermaceti. — Macy,  Folger,  Admiral  Sir  Isaac  Coffin 324 

CHAPTER  XXI. 

NANTUCKET — continued. 

Taking  Blackfish. — Blue-fishing  at  the  Opening. — Walk  to  Coatue. — The  Scallop-shell. — Struc 
ture  of  the  Island.— Indian  Legends. — Shepherd  Life. — Absolutism  of  Indian  Sagamores. — 


CONTENTS.  13 

Wasting  of  the  Shores  of  the  Island. — Siasconset. — Nantucket  Carts. — Fishing-stages. — The 
Great  South  Shoal. — Sankoty  Light.— Surfside Page  343 

CHAPTER  XXII. 

NEWPORT    OF   AQUIDNECK. 

General  View  of  Newport. — Sail  up  the  Harbor. — Commercial  Decadence. — Street  Rambles. — 
William  Coddington. — Anne  Hutchinson. — The  Wantons. — Newport  Artillery. — State-house 
Notes. — Tristram  Burgess. — Jewish  Cemetery  and  Synagogue. — Judah  Touro. — Redwood  Li 
brary.— The  Old  Stone  Mill 35G 

CHAPTER  XXIII. 

PICTURESQUE    NEWPORT. 

The  Cliff  Walk. — Newport  Cottages  and  Cottage  Life. — Charlotte  Cushman. — Fort  Day  and  Fort 
Adams. — Bernard,  the  Engineer. — Dumplings  Fort. — Canonicut. — Hessians.  —  Newport 
Drives. — The  Beaches. — Purgatory. — Dean  Berkeley 373 

CHAPTER  XXIV. 

THE    FRENCH    AT    NEWPORT. 

Behavior  of  the  Troops. — Monarchy  aiding  Democracy. — D'Estaing. — Jourdan. — French  Camps. 
— Rochambeau,  De  Ternay,  De  Noailles. — Efforts  of  England  to  break  the  Alliance. — Fred 
erick's  Remark. — Malmesbury  and  Potemkin. — Lord  North  and  Yorktown. — George  III. — 
Biron,  Due  de  Lauzun. — Chastellux,  De  Castries,  Viomenil,  Lameth,  Dumas,  La  Pey rouse, 
Berthier,  and  Deux-Ponts. — The  Regiment  Auvergne. — Latour  D'Auvergne.— French  Diplo 
macy' 386 

CHAPTER  XXV. 

NEWPORT    CEMETERIES. 

Rhode  Island  Cemetery. — Curious  Inscriptions. — William  Ellery. — Oliver  Hazard  Perry. — The 
Quakers. — George  Fox. — Quaker  Persecution. — Other  Grave-yards. — Lee  and  the  Rhode  Isl 
and  Tories. — Coddington  and  Gorton. — John  Coggeshall. — Trinity  Church-yard. — Dr.  Samuel 
Hopkins.— Gilbert  Stuart 398 

CHAPTER  XXVI. 

TO   MOUNT   HOPE,  AND   BEYOND. 

Walk  up  the  Island. — "Tonomy"  Hill. — The  Malbones. — Capture  of  General  Prescott.— Talbot's 
Exploit. — Ancient  Stages. — Windmills. — About  Fish.— Lawton's  Valley.— Battle  of  1778. — 
Island  History. — Mount  Hope. — Philip's  Death. — Dighton  Rock. — Indian  Antiquities....  407 

CHAPTER  XXVII. 

NEW   LONDON   AND   NORWICH. 

Entrance  to  the  Thames. — Fisher's  Island. — Block  Island. — New  London. — Light-ships  and 
Light-houses. — Hempstead  House.— Bishop  Seabury.— Old  Burial-ground.— New  London  Har 
bor.— The  little  Ship-destroyer.— Groton  and  Monument. — Arnold.— British  Attack  on  Groton. 
— Fort  Griswold. — The  Pequots. — John  Mason. — Silas  Deane. — Beaumarchais.—  John  Led- 


U  CONTENTS. 

yard. — Decatur  and  Hardy. — Norwich  City. — The  Yantic  picturesque. — Uncas,  the  Mohegan 
Chieftain. — Norwich  Town. — Fine  old  Trees. — The  Huntingtons Page  420 

CHAPTER  XXVIII. 

SAYBROOK. 

Old  Saybrook. — Disappearance  of  the  Yankee.— Old  Girls. — Isaac  Hull. — The  Harts. — Connecti 
cut  River. — Old  Fortress. — Dutch  Courage. — The  Pilgrims'  Experiences. — Cromwell,  Hamp- 
den,  and  Pym. — Lady  Fenwick. — George  Fenwick. — Lion  Gardiner. — Old  Burial-ground. — 
Yale  College.— The  Shore,  and  the  End 441 


INDEX..,  451 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS. 


Pigeon  Cove,  Cape  Ann .  Fr'tixpiece. 

Map In  Preface.  \ 

Head-piece 18  | 

Jacques  Cartier 20 

Captain  John  Smith 21 

Pierre  du  Gnast,  Sieur  de  Monts  23 

Sir  Humphrey  Gilbert 24 

Fac-  simile    of  first  Map   en 
graved  in  New  England .'  25 

Tail-piece 26 

Mount  Desert,  from  Blue  Hill 

Bay 27 

Map  of  Mount  Desert  Island  . .  28 

Samuel  Champlain 29 

Head  of  Somes's  Sound 32 

Echo  Lake 33 

Cliffs,  Dog  Mountain,  Somes's 

Sound 3T 

The  Stone  Wall 38 

Entrance  to  Somes's  Sound  ...  39 

Professor  Agassiz 40 

View  of  Eagle  Lake  and  the 

Sea  from  Green  Mountain ...  43 

Cliffs  on  Bald  Porcupine 44  ' 

Southerly    End     of    Newport 
Mountain,    near    the    Sand 

Beach 45 

Cave  of  the  Sea,  Schooner  Head  46 

Cliffs  at  Schooner  Head 4T 

Devil's  Den  and  Schooner  Head  48 

Great  Head 51 

The  Ovens,  Salisbury's  Cove. .  55 

Tail-piece 57 

Castine,     approaching      from 

Islesboro 58 

General  Henry  Knox 61 

General  Benjamin  Lincoln 62 

Fort  Point 63 

View  from  Fort  George 66 

Sir  John  Moore 6T 

Fort  Griffith 68 

Fort  George 69 

Tail-piece 72 

Ruins  of  Fort  Pentagoet 73 

Pine-tree  Shilling 75 

Colbert 79 

Lobster  Pot 85 

Tail-piece 86 

Old  Fort  Frederick,  Pemaquid 

Point 87 

"The  Land-breeze  of  Evening"  88 

Cotton  Mather 94 

Ancient  Pemaquid 95 


PAGE 

Charlevoix 96 

French  Frigate,  Seventeenth 

Century 98 

Hutchiuson 99 

Monhegan  Island 102 

Thatcher's  Island  Light,  and 

Fog-signals,  Cape  Ann 103 

Graves  of  Burrows  and  Blythe, 

Portland 107 

Tail-piece  (Burrows's  Medal) . .  108 

Gorge,  Bald  Head  Cliff 109 

Old  Wrecks  on  the  Beach 112 

The  Morning  Round 119 

What  the  Sea  can  do 123 

York  Meeting-house ...  134 

Jail  at  Old  York 136 

Pillory 137 

Stocks 137 

Old  Garrison  House 139 

Tail-piece 140 

Portsmouth,  New  Hampshire, 

from  Kittery  Bridge 141 

Navy  Yard,  Kittery,  Maine 142 

Block-house  and  Fort,  Kittery 

Point 144 

Sir  William  PepperelPs  House, 

Kittery  Point 145 

Sir  William  Pepperell 146 

Kittery  Point,  Maine 148 

Governor  Langdon's  Mansion, 

Portsmouth 150 

Tail-piece 152 

Whale's-back  Light 153 

Portsmouth  and  the  Isles  of 

Shoals  (Map) 154 

Shag  and  Mingo  Rocks,  Duck 

Island 158 

Meeting-house,  Star  Island —  163 
The  Graves,  with  Captain  John 

Smith's  Monument,  Star  Isl 
and  165 

Gorge,  Star  Island 169 

Tail-piece 174 

Cliffs,  White  Island 175 

Blackboard,  the  Pirate 178 

Smutty  Nose 182 

Haley  Dock  and  Homestead. . .  183 
Ledge  of  Rocks,  Smutty  Nose  .  186 
South-east  End  of  Appledore, 

looking  South 187 

Duck  Island,  from  Appledore . .  188 

Laighton's  Grave 190 

Londoner's,  from  Star  Island..  191 


Covered  Way  and  Light-house, 

White  Island 193 

White  Island  Light 194 

Tail-piece 195 

Wentworth  House,  Little  Har 
bor 196 

Point  of  Graves 197 

Old  House,  Great  Island 198 

Old  Tower,  Newcastle 199 

Gate -way,  old  Fort  Constitu 
tion 200 

Sir  Thomas  Wentworth,  Went 
worth  House,  Little  Harbor.    201 

Marquis  of  Rockiugham 202 

In  the  Wentworth  House,  Lit 
tle  Harbor 203 

Lady  Hancock's  Portrait  in  the 

Wentworth  House 204 

Governor  Benning  Wentworth.  206 

Baron  Steuben 207 

Witch  Hill,  Salem 20S 

Custom-house,  Salem,  Massa 
chusetts 211 

Rebecca  Nurse's  House 213 

Procter  House 214 

Birthplace  of  Putnam 217 

Putnam  in  British  Uniform....  218 

Eudicott  Pear-tree 218 

Tail-piece    (Putnam's    Tavern 

Siirn) 219 

Washington  Street,  Salem 220 

Birthplace  of  Hawthorne 221 

Shattuck  House 221 

Room  in  which  Hawthorne  was 

bora 222 

The  old  Witch  House 223 

Fragment  of  Examination  of 

Rebecca  Nurse 224 

Thomas  Beadle's  Tavern,  1692.  225 
Interior  of  First  Church,  Salem  227 
Ireson's  House,  Oakum  Bay, 

Marblehead 228 

Great  Head 229 

"The  Churn" 230 

Drying  Fish,  Little  Harbor S32 

Unloading  Fish 235 

A  Group  of  Antiques 237 

Lee  Street 239 

Tucker's  Wharf— the  Steps  ....  241 

Gregory  Street 242 

Lee  House 245 

Town-house  and  Square 247 

St.  Michael's,  Marblehead 248 


16 


LIST  OF   ILLUSTRATIONS. 


Elbridge  Gerry 249 

The  Gerrymander 250 

"Old  North"   Congregational 

Chnrch 251 

Samuel  Tucker 252 

General  Glover 253 

Fort  Sewall 255 

Powder-house,  1T55 256 

James  Lawrence 257 

Glimpse  of  the  Seamen's  Mon 
ument  and  old  Burial-ground  258 

Lone  Graves 260. 

"  Sitting,  stitching  in  a  mourn 
ful  Muse" 260 

The  Hoe,  English  Plymouth. . .  261 

Map  of  Plymouth 262 

Pilgrim  Hall 263 

Brewster's  Chest,  and  Stand- 

ish'e  Pot 263 

Lauding  of  the  Pilgrims 264 

Carver's  and  Brewster's  Chairs  265 

Mincing  Knife 265 

Peregrine  White's  Cabinet 265 

Standish's  Sword 266 

The  Old  Colony  Seal 267 

Map  of  Plymouth  Bay 269 

Champlain's  Map.  —  Port  Cape 

St.  Louis 274 

Tail-piece 2S2 

The  Pilgrims'  first  Encounter..  283 
Building  on  the  Site  of  Brad 
ford's  Mansion 284 

Site  of  the  Common  House 286 

The  Allyne  House 287 

The     Joanna    Davis     House, 

Cole's  Hill 288 

Plymouth  Rock  in  1850 289 

The  Gurnet 296 

Watson's  House,  Clark's  Island  297 
Election  Rock,  Clark's  Island.  298 

Church's  Sword 302 

Tail-piece 303 

Proviucetown,  from  the  Hills..  304 

Cohasset  Narrows 305 

Highland  Light,  Cape  Cod 303 

Washing  Fish 309 

Mackerel.— A  Family  Group. . .  313 

Pond  Village,  Cape  Cod 315 

Picking  and  sorting  Cranber 
ries—Cape  Cod 317 

Sand-hills,  Proviucetown 318 

Life-boat  Station.— Trial  of  the 

Bomb  and  Line 321 

Tail-piece  (A  "  Snnfish  ") 323 

Nan  tucket,  from  the  Sea 324 

Map  of  Cape  Cod,  Nantucket, 

and  Martha's  Vineyard 325 

Approach  to  Martha's  Vineyard  326 
A  Bit  of  Nantucket— the  House 
tops 328 


PAGE 

Last  of  the  Whale-ships 332 

Whaling  in  the  olden  Time ....  333 

Whale  of  the  Ancients 334 

E.  Johnson's  Studio,  Nantucket  341 

Tail-piece 342 

Nantucket.  —  Old    Windmill, 

looking  oceanward 343 

Captured  Porpoise  and  Black- 
fish 345 

The  Blue-fish 346 

Blue-fishing 347 

Homes  of  the  Fishermen,  Sias- 

conset 352 

The  Sea-bluff,  Siasconset 353 

Hauling  a  Dory  over  the  Hills, 

Nantucket 354 

Light -house,  Saukoty  Head, 

Nantucket 355 

!  Tail-piece 355 

Newport,  from  Fort  Adams. ...  356 

Old  Fort,  Dumpling  Rocks 358 

Old-time  Houses 360 

Residence   of  Governor   Cod- 

dington,  Newport,  1641 361 

Newport  State-house 363 

Commodore  Perry's  House  —  364 

Jewish  Cemetery 365 

Jews'  Synagogue,  Newport 366 

Judah  Touro 367 

The  Redwood  Library 368 

Abraham  Redwood 369 

The  Old  Stone  Mill "...  370 

I  The  Perry  Monument 371 

Tail-piece 372 

Boat  Landing 373 

The  Beach 374 

|  Cliff  Walk 375 

!  The  Cliffs 376 

!  A  Newport  Cottage 377 

1  Charlotte  Cushman's  Residence  377 

Spouting  Rock 378 

!  The  Dumplings 380 

!  Hessian  Grenadier 381 

Coast  Scene,  Newport 382 

The  Drive 383 

Purgatory  Bluff 383 

Whitehall 384 

Washington  Park,  Newport 385 

D'Estaing 386 

Earl  Howe 388 

Rochambeau 388 

Rochambeau's  Head-quarters  .  389 

Louis  XVI 389 

Military  Map  of  Rhode  Island, 

1778 390 

Lafayette 391 

I  Baron  Viomenil 391 

Trinity  Church,  Newport 392 

Chastellux 392 

Lauznn...  ..  393 


Mathieu  Dumas 394 

Deux-Ponts 395 

De  Ban-as 395 

Latour  D'Auvergue 396 

Tail-piece 397 

Graves  on  the  Bluff,  Fort  Road  398 
Tombstones,   Newport    Ceme 
tery  399 

Perry's  Monument 401 

Oliver  Hazard  Perry 401 

Friends'  Meeting-house 402 

George  Fox 403 

Charles  Lee 404 

Mount  Hope 407 

The  Glen 408 

A  Rhode  Island  Windmill 409 

William  Barton 410 

Silas  Talbot 410 

Prescott's  Head-quarters 411 

Agricultural  Prosperity 412 

From    Butts's    Hill,    looking 

North 413 

Quaker  Hill,  from  Butts's  Hill, 
looking  North 414 

j  Battle-ground  of  August  29, 1778  414 

;  King  Philip,  from  an  old  Print  415 
Inscription  on  Dightou  Rock. .  416 
Old  Leonard  House,  Raynham.  419 
New  London  in  1813 420 

,  New    London    Harbor,    north 
View 421 

!  New  London  Light 421 

New  London  in  1781  (Map) ....  422 
Old  Block-house,  Fort  Trum- 

bull 423 

A  Light-ship  on  her  Station. . .  424 

Court-house,  New  London 425 

Bishop  Seabury's  Monument  . .  426 

Grotou  Monument 427 

Benedict  Arnold 429 

Storming  of  the  Indian  For 
tress  430 

Silas  Deane 431 

Stephen  Decatur 433 

Rustic  Bridge,  Norwich 434 

Old  Mill,  Norwich 435 

i  Signatures  of  Uucas   and  his 
Sons 436 

i  Uucas's  Monument 437 

|  Arnold's  Birthplace 437 

Elm-trees  by  the  Wayside 438 

General  Huntiugton's  House  . .  438 
Mansion  of  Governor  Hunting- 
ton 439 

Congregational  Church 440 

Tail-piece 440 

I  Peter  Stuyvesant 441 

Isaac  Hull 444 

A  Moss-grown  Memorial 446 

Tail-piece 449 


THE  NEW  ENGLAND  COAST. 


CHAPTER  I. 

NEW    ENGLAND    OF   THE    ANCIENTS. 

"This  is  the  forest  primeval.     The  murmuring  pines  and  the  hemlocks, 
Bearded  with  moss,  and  with  garments  green,  indistinct  in  the  twilight, 
Stand  like  Druids  of  Old,  with  voices  sad  and  prophetic, 
Stand  like  harpers  hoar,  with  beards  that  rest  on  their  bosoms. 
Loud  from  its  rocky  caverns  the  deep-voiced  neighboring  ocean 
Speaks,  and  in  accents  disconsolate  answers  the  wail  of  the  forest." 

LONGFELLOW. 

IN  many  respects  the  sea-coast  of  Maine  is  the  most  remarkable  of  New 
England.  It  is  serrated  with  craggy  projections,  studded  with  harbors, 
seamed  with  inlets.  Broad  bays  conduct  to  rivers  of  great  volume  that  an 
nually  bear  her  forests  down  to  the  sea.  Her  shores  are  barricaded  with 
islands,  and  her  waters  teem  with  the  abundance  of  the  seas.  Seen  on  the 
map,  it  is  a  splintered,  jagged,  forbidding  sea-board ;  beheld  with  the  eye 
in  a  kindly  season,  its  tawny  headlands,  green  archipelagos,  and  inviting  bar- 

2 


18  •  THE:NENV*  ENGLAND   COAST. 

bors,  infolding i  sijes1  re£a(lijng*  t"h*e,  -earlier  efforts  at  European  colonization, 
combine  in  a  wondrous  degree  to  win  the  admiration  of  the  man  of  science, 
of  letters,  or  of  leisure. 

Maine  embraces  within  her  limits  the  semi-fabulous  Norumbega  and  Ma- 
voshen  of  ancient  writers.  Some  portion  of  her  territory  has  been  known 
at  various  times  by  the  names  of  Acadia,  New  France,  and  New  England. 
The  arms  of  France  and  of  England  have  alternately  been  erected  on  her  soil, 
and  the  flags  of  at  least  four  powerful  states  have  claimed  her  subjection. 
The  most  numerous  and  warlike  of  the  primitive  New  England  nations  were 
seated  here.  Traces  of  French  occupation  are  remaining  in  the  names  of  St. 
Croix,  Mount  Desert,  Isle  au  Haut,  and  Castine,  names  which  neither  treaties 
nor  national  prejudice  have  been  quite  able  to  eradicate. 

The  name  of  Norumbega,  or  Norembegue,  the  earliest  applied  to  New 
England,  is  attributed  to  the  Portuguese  and  Spaniards.  Jean  Alfonse,  the 
pilot  of  Roberval,  the  same  person  who  is  accredited  with  having  been  first 
to  navigate  the  waters  of  Massachusetts  Bay,  gives  them  the  credit  of  its 
discovery.  It  is  true  that  Marc  Lescarbot,  the  Parisian  advocate  whose  re 
lations  are  the  foundations  of  so  many  others,  was  at  the  colony  of  Port 
Royal  in  the  year  1606,  with  Pontgrave,  Champlain,  and  De  Poutrincourt. 
This  writer  discredits  all  of  Alfonse's  statement  in  relation  to  the  great 
river  and  coast  of  Norumbega,  except  that  part  of  it  in  which  he  says  the 
river  had  at  its  entrance  many  islands,  banks,  and  rocks.  In  this  fragment 
from  the  "  Voyages  Aventureux "  of  Alfonse,  the  embouchure  of  the  river 
of  N.orumbega  is  placed  in  thirty  degrees  ("trente  degrez")  and  the  pilot 
states  that  from  thence  the  coast  turns  to  the  west  and  west-north-west  for 
more  than  two  hundred  and  fifty  leagues.1  The  most  casual  reader  will  know 
how  to  value  such  a  relation  without  reference  to  the  sarcasm  of  Lescarbot, 
when  he  says,  "And  well  may  he  call  his  voyages  adventurous,  not  for  him 
self,  who  was  never  in  the  hundredth  part  of  the  places  which  he  describes 
(at  least  it  is  easy  to  conjecture  so),  but  for  those  who  might  wish  to  follow 
the  routes  which  he  directs  the  mariner  to  follow."  After  this,  his  claims  to 
be  considered  the  first  European  navigator  in  Massachusetts  Bay  must  be  re 
ceived  with  many  grains  of  allowance. 

Champlain,  who  remained  in  the  country  through  the  winter  of  1605,  on 
purpose  to  complete  his  map,  has  this  to  say  of  the  river  and  city  of  Norum 
bega;  he  is  writing  of  the  Penobscot : 

"I  believe  this  river  is  that  which  several  historians  call  Norumbegue, 
and  which  the  greater  part  have  written,  is  large  and  spacious,  with  many 
islands ;  and  its  entrance  in  forty-three  and  forty-three  and  a  half;  and  others 
in  forty-four,  more  or  less,  of  latitude.  As  for  the  declination,  I  have  neither 

1  "Et  que  passe  cette  riviere  la  cote  tourne  a  1'Ouest  et  Ouest-Norouest  plus  de  deux  cens  cin- 
quante  lieuei=,"etc. 


NEW  ENGLAND  OF  THE  ANCIENTS.  19 

read  nor  heard  any  one  speak  of  it.  They  describe  also  a  great  and  very 
populous  city  of  natives,  dexterous  and  skillful,  having  cotton  cloth.  I  am 
satisfied  that  the  major  part  of  those  who  make  mention  of  it  have  never 
seen  it,  and  speak  from  the  hearsay  evidence  of  those  who  know  no  more 
than  themselves.  I  can  well  believe  that  there  are  some  who  have  seen  the 
embouchure,  for  the  reason  that  there  are,  in  fact,  many  islands  there,  and 
that  it  lies  in  the  latitude  of  forty-four  degrees  at  its  entrance,  as  they  say ; 
but  that  any  have  entered  it  is  not  credible ;  for  they  must  have  described 
it  in  quite  another  manner  to  have  removed  this  doubt  from  many  people." 
With  this  protest  Charu plain  admits  the  country  of  Norumbega  to  a  place 
on  his  map  of  1612. 

In  the  "Histoire  Universelle  des  Indes  Occidentales"  printed  at  Douay  in 
1607,  the  author,  after  describing  Virginia,  speaks  of  Norumbega,  its  great 
river  and  beautiful  city.  The  mouth  of  the  river  is  fixed  in  the  forty-fourth 
and  the  pretended  city  in  the  forty-fifth  degree,  which  approximates  closely 
enough  to  the  actual  latitude  of  the  Penobscot.  This  authority  adds,  that  it 
is  not  known  whence  the  name  originated,  for  the  Indians  called  it  Agguncia.1 
It  also  refers  to  the  island  well  situated  for  fishery  at  the  mouth  of  the  great 
river.  On  the  map  of  Ortelius  (1603)  the  two  countries  of  Norumbega  and 
Nova  Francia  occupy  what  is  now  Nova  Scotia  and  New  England  respect 
ively.  The  only  features  laid  down  in  Nova  Francia  by  name  are  "R.  Grande 
Orsinora,"  "  C.  de  laguas  islas,"and  "Montagues  St.  Jean."  These  localities 
answer  reasonably  well  to  as  many  conjectures  as  there  are  mountains, 
streams,  and  capes  in  New  England ;  there  is  no  projection  of  the  coast 
corresponding  with  Cape  Cod.  Charnplain  names  the  River  Penobscot,  Pe- 
metegoit.  By  this  appellation,  with  some  trivial  change  in  orthography, 
it  continued  known  to  the  French  until  its  final  repossession  by  the  En 
glish.2 

Turning  to  the  "  painful  collections  of  Master  Hakluyt,"  the  old  preb 
endary  of  Bristol,  we  find  Mavoshen  described  as  "  a  country  lying  to  the 
north  and  by  east  of  Virginia,  between  the  degrees  of  43  and  45,  fortie 
leagues  broad  and  fifty  in  length,  lying  in  breadth  east  and  west,  and  in 
length  north  and  south.  It  is  bordered  on  the  east  with  a  countrey,  the  peo 
ple  whereof  they  call  Tarrantines,  on  the  west  with  Epistoman,  on  the  north 
with  a  very  great  wood,  called  Senaglecounc,  and  on  the  south  with  the 
mayne  ocean  sea  and  many  islands."  In  all  these  relations  there  is  some 
thing  of  fact,  but  much  more  that  is  too  unsubstantial  for  the  historian's  ac 
ceptance.  The  voyages  of  the  Norsemen,  of  De  Rut,  and  Thevet  are  still  a 

:  The  monk  Andre  Thevet,  who  professes  to  have  visited  Norumbega  River  in  1556,  says  it 
was  called  by  the  natives  "Agoncy." 

3  According  to  the  Abbe  Maurault.  Pentagoet,  in  the  Indian  vocabulary,  signifies  "a  place  in 
a  river  where  there  are  rapids."  On  the  authority  of  the  "  History  of  the  Abenaquis,"  Penobscot 
is,  "where  the  land  is  stony,  or  covered  with  rocks." 


20 


THE  NEW  ENGLAND  COAST. 


disputed  and  a  barren  field.    I  do  not  propose  here  to  indulge  in  speculations 
respecting  them. 

Francis  I.  demanded,  it  is  said,  to  be  shown  that  clause  in  the  will  of 

Adam  which  disinherited 
him  in  the  New  World  for 
the  benefit  of  the  Span 
iards.  Under  his  favor, 
the  Florentine  Verazzani 
put  to  sea  from  Dieppe,  in 
Le  Dauphine,  in  the  year 
1524.1  By  virtue  of  his 
discoveries  the  French  na 
tion  claimed  all  the  terri 
tory  now  included  in  New 
England.  The  astute  Fran 
cis  followed  up  the  clew 
by  dispatching,  in  1534, 
Jacques  Cartier  in  La 
Grande  Hermine.  Despite 
the  busy  times  in  Europe, 
near  the  close  of  his  reign, 
Henry  IV.  continued  to  fa 
vor  projects  confirming  the 
footing  obtained  by  his 
predecessors.  Until  1614, 
when  the  name  of  New 
England  first  appeared  on 
Smith's  map,  the  French 
had  the  honor  of  adding 
about  all  that  was  known  to  the  geography  of  its  sea-board. 

There  can  now  be  no  harm  in  saying  that  Captain  John  Smith  was  not 
the  first  to  give  a  Christian  name  to  New  England.  The  Florentine  Veraz 
zani  called  it,  in  1524,  New  France,  when  he  traversed  the  coasts  from  the 
thirty -fourth  parallel  to  Newfoundland,  or  Prima  Vista.  Sebastian  Cabot 
may  have  seen  it  before  him ;  but  this  is  only  conjecture,  though  our  great 
grandfathers  were  willing  to  spill  their  blood  rather  than  have  it  called  New 
France.  According  to  the  "  Modern  Universal  History,"  Cabot  confessedly 
took  formal  possession  of  Newfoundland  and  Norumbega,  whence  he  carried 
off  three  natives.  In  the  "Theatre  Universel  cV Ortelius"  there  is  a  map  of 
America,  engraved  in  1572,  and  very  minute,  in  which  all  the  countries  north 


JACQUES   CARTIER. 


1  It  is  curious  that  three  Italians — Columbus,  Cabot,  and  A^erazzani — should  lead  all  others  hi 
the  discoveries  of  the  American  continent. 


NEW   ENGLAND   OF  THE  ANCIENTS. 


21 


and  south  are  entitled  New  France.  "  The  English,"  says  a  French  au 
thority,  "  had  as  yet  nothing  in  that  country,  and  there  is  nothing  set  down 
on  this  map  for  them." 

In  Mercator's  atlas  of  1623  is  a  general  map  of  America,  which  calls  all 
the  territory  north  and  south  of 
Canada  New  France.  New  En 
gland  does  not  find  a  place  on  this 
map.  Canada  is  down  as  a  particu 
lar  province.  Virginia  is  also  there. 

Captain  John  Smith's  map  of 
New  England  of  1614  contains 
many  singular  features.  In  his 
"  Description  of  New  England," 
printed  in  1616,  the  Indian  names 
are  given  of  all  their  coast  settle 
ments.  Prince  Charles,  however, 
altered  these  to  English  names  af 
ter  the  book  was  printed.  The  re 
tention  of  some  of  them  by  the 
actual  settlers  might  be  accidental, 
but  they  appear  much  as  if  scat 
tered  at  random  over  the  paper. 
"Plimouth"  is  where  it  was  located  six  years  after  the  date  of  the  map. 
York  is  called  Boston,  and  Agamenticus  "  Snadoun  Hill."  Penobscot  is  called 
"  Pembrock's  Bay." 

The  name  of  Cape  Breton  is  said  to  occur  on  very  early  maps,  antecedent 
even  to  Carder's  voyage.  A  map  of  Henry  II.  is  the  oldest  mentioned.  "  Nu- 
rembega  "  is  on  a  map  in  ".Le  Receuil  de  Ramusius"1  tome  iii.,  where  there  is 
an  account  of  a  Frenchman  of  Dieppe,  and  a  map  made  before  the  discovery 
of  "Jean  Guartier."  It  is  asserted  that  the  Basque  and  Breton  fishermen 
were  on  the  coast  of  America  before  the  Portuguese  and  Spaniards.  Baron 
La  Hontan  says,  "  The  seamen  of  French  Biscay  are  known  to  be  the  most 
able  and  dexterous  mariners  that  are  in  the  world."  It  is  pretty  certain 
that  Cape  Breton  had  this  name  before  the  voyages  of  Cartier  or  Cham- 
plain.  The  Frenchman  of  Dieppe  is  supposed  to  be  Thomas  Aubert,  whose 
discovery  is  assigned  to  the  year  1508. 

The  atlas  of  Guillaume  and  John  Blauw  has  a  map  of  America  in  tome  i. 
There  is  a  second,  entitled  Nova  Belyica  and  Nova  Anglica.  New  England 
extends  no  farther  than  the  Kennebec,  where  begins  the  territory  of  Nova 
Francion  Pars,  in  which  Norumbega  is  located.  The  rivers  Pentagouet  and 
Chouacouet  (Saco)  appear  properly  placed.  The  map  bears  certain  marks  in 


CAPTAIN   JOHN    SMITH. 


1  Giambetta  Ramusio,  the  Venetian. 


22  THE   NEW  ENGLAND   COAST. 

its  nomenclature,  and  the  configuration  of  the  coast,  of  being  compiled  from 
those  of  Champlain  and  Smith.1 

Researches  made  in  England,  France,  and  Holland,  at  the  instance  of  Mas 
sachusetts  and  New  York,2  have  resulted  in  the  recovery  of  many  manu 
script  fragments  more  or  less  interesting,  bearing  upon  the  question  of  pri 
ority  of  discovery.  Of  these  the  following  is  not  the  least  curious.  If  cre 
dence  may  be  placed  in  the  author  of  the  " Memoires  pour  servir  d  Vllistoire 
de  Dieppe"  "  Reeherches  sur  les  Voyages  et  decouvertes  des  Namgateurs  Nor- 
mands"  and  "Namgateurs  Fran$ais"  the  continent  of  America  was  discover 
ed  by  Captain  Cousin  in  the  year  1488.  Sailing  from  Dieppe,  he  was  carried 
westward  by  a  gale,  and  drawn  by  currents  to  an  unknown  coast,  where  he 
saw  the  mouth  of  a  large  river. 

Cousin's  first  officer  was  "  un  etranger  nomine  Pinyon  ou  Pinzon,"  who  in 
stigated  the  men  to  mutiny,  and  was  so  turbulent  that,  on  the  return  of  the 
caravel,  Cousin  charged  him  before  the  magistrates  of  Dieppe  with  mutiny, 
insubordination,  and  violence.  He  was  banished  from  the  city,  and  embarked 
four  years  afterward,  say  the  Dieppois,  with  Christopher  Columbus,  to  whom 
he  had  given  information  of  the  New  World.3 

In  the  "Bibliotheque  Royale  "  of  Paris  there  is,  or  rather  was,  existing  a 
manuscript  (dated  in  1545)  entitled  "  Cosmographie  de  Jean  Alfonce  le  Xain- 
tongeois"  It  is  undoubtedly  from  this  manuscript  that  Jean  de  Marnef  and 
De  St.  Gelais  compiled  the  "  Voyages  Aventureux  d"*  Alfonce  Xaintongeois" 
printed  in  1559,  which  includes  an  expedition  along  the  coast  from  New 
foundland  southwardly  to  "une  baye  jusques  par  les  42  degres,  entre  la  No- 
rembegue  et  la  Fleuride,"  in  1543. 

Of  Jean  Alfonse  it  is  known  that  he  was  one  of  Roberval's  pilots,  in  his 
voyage  of  1542  to  Canada,  and  that  he  returned  home  with  Cartier.  Rober- 
val  expected  to  find  a  north-west  passage,  and  Jean  Alfonse,  who  searched 
the  coast  for  it,  believed  the  land  he  saw  to  the  southward  to  be  part  of  the 
continent  of  Asia.  His  cruise  within  the  latitude  of  Massachusetts  Bay  is 
also  mentioned  by  Hakluyt.  The  claim  of  Alfonse  to  be  the  discoverer  of 
Massachusetts  Bay  has  been  set  forth  with  due  prominence.4  Alfonse  and 
Champlain  were  both  from  the  same  old  province  in  the  west  of  France. 

It  goes  without  dispute  that  the  older  French  historians  knew  little  or 


1  Champlain's  map  of  1612  is  entitled  "  CARTE  GEOGRAPHIQVE  DE  LA  NOVVELLE  FRANCE 

FAICTTE   PAR    LE    SlEVR    DE    CHAMPLAIN    SAINT    TONGOIS,  CAPPITAINE    ORDINAIRE   POVR    LE 

ROY  EN  LA  MARINE.  Faict  len  1612."  All  the  territory  from  Labrador  to  Cape  Cod  is  em 
braced  in  this  very  curious  map.  Some  of  its  details  will  be  introduced  in  successive  chapters  as 
occasion  may  demand.  There  is  another  map  of  Champlain  of  1632,  fort  detaille,  but  of  less 
rarity  than  the  first. 

2  By  Ben  Pevley  Poore  and  John  Romeyn  Brodhead. 

3  "Massachusetts  Archives,  French  Documents, "vol.  i.,  p.  2G9. 

4  Rev.  B.  F.  De  Costa's  "Northmen  in  Maine." 


NEW   ENGLAND    OF   THE   ANCIENTS. 


23 


nothing  of  Hakluyt  and  Pnrchas.  So  little  did  the  affairs  of  the  New 
World  engage  their  attention,  that  in  the  "  History  of  France,"  by  Father 
Daniel,  printed  at  Amster 
dam  in  1720,  by  the  Com 
pany  of  Jesuits,  in  six  pon 
derous  tomes,  the  discover 
ies  and  settlements  in  New 
France  (Canada)  occupy  no 
more  than  a  dozen  lines. 
Cartier,Roberval,De  Monts, 
and  Champlain  are  mention 
ed,  and  that  is  all. 

When  a  vessel  of  the  old 
navigators  was  approaching 
the  coast,the  precaution  was 
taken  of  sending  sailors  to 
the  mast-head.  These  look 
outs  were  relieved  every 
two  hours  until  night-fall,  at 
which  time,  if  the  land  was 
not  yet  in  sight,  they  furl 
ed  their  sails  so  as  to  make 
little  or  no  way  during  the 
night.  It  was  a  matter  of 
emulation  among  the  ship's 
company  who  should  first 
discover  the  land,  as  the 
passengers  usually  present 
ed  the  lucky  one  with  some 
pistoles.  One  writer  men 
tions  that  on  board  French 
vessels,  after  sighting  Cape  Race,  the  ceremony  known  among  us  as  "cross 
ing  the  line  "  was  performed  by  the  old  salts  on  the  green  hands,  without  re 
gard  to  season. 

The  method  of  taking  possession  of  a  new  country  is  thus  described  in 
the  old  chronicles :  Jacques  Cartier  erected  a  cross  thirty  feet  high,  on  which 
was  suspended  a  shield  with  the  arms  of  France  and  the  words  "  Vive  le  7?oy." 
Sir  Humphrey  Gilbert,  in  1583,  raised  a  pillar  at  Newfoundland,  with  a  plate 
of  lead,  having  the  queen's  arms  "  graven  thereon."  A  turf  and  a  twig  were 
presented  to  him,  which  he  received  with  a  hazel  wand.  The  expression  "  by 
turf  and  twig,"  a  symbol  of  actual  possession  of  the  soil  and  its  products,  is 
still  to  be  met  with  in  older  New  England  records. 

Douglass,  the  American  historian,  speaking  of  Henry  IV.,  says,  "He  plant- 


FIERRE  DU  GUAST,  SIEUR  DE   MONTS. 


24 


THE   NEW  ENGLAND   COAST. 


SIR   HUMPHKEY    GILBERT. 


ed  a  colony  in  Canada  which  subsists  to  this  day.     May  it  not  long  subsist ; 
it  is  a  nuisance  to  our  North  American  settlements :  Delenda  est  Carthago" 
The  insignificant  attempt  of  Gosnold,  in  1603,  and  the  disastrous  one  of 

Popham,  in  1607,  contributed  lit 
tle  to  the  knowledge  of  New 
England.  But  the  absence  of 
any  actual  possession  of  the  soil 
did  not  prevent  the  exercise  of 
unworthy  violence  toward  in 
truders  on  the  territory  claimed 
by  the  English  crown.  In  1613 
Sir  Samuel  Argall  broke  up  the 
French  settlement  begun  at  Mount 
Desert  in  that  year,  opening  fire 
on  the  unsuspecting  colonists  be 
fore  he  gave  himself  the  trouble 
of  a  formal  summons.  Those  of 
other  nations  fared  little  better,  as 
the  following  recital  will  show : 

Purchas  relates  that  "  Sir  Ber 
nard  Drake,  a  Devonshire  knight,  came  to  Newfoundland  with  a  commission ; 
and  having  divers  good  ships  under  his  command,  he  took  many  Portugal 
ships,  and  brought  them  into  England  as  prizes. 

"Sir  Bernard,  as  was  said,  having  taken  a  Portugal  ship,  and  brought  her 
into  one  of  our  western  ports,  the  seamen  that  were  therein  were  sent  to  the 
prison  adjoining  the  Castle  of  Exeter.  At  the  next  assizes  held  at  the  castle 
there,  about  the  27th  of  Queen  Elizabeth,  when  the  prisoners  of  the  county 
were  brought  to  be  arraigned  before  Sergeant  Flowerby,  one  of  the  judges 
appointed  for  this  western  circuit  at  that  time,  suddenly  there  arose  such  a 
noisome  smell  from  the  bar  that  a  great  number  of  people  there  present  were 
therewith  infected;  whereof  in  a  very  short  time  after  died  the  said  judge, 
Sir  John  Chichester,  Sir  Arthur  Bassett,  and  Sir  Bernard  Drake,  knights,  and 
justices  of  the  peace  there  sitting  on  the  bench;  and  eleven  of  the  jury  im 
paneled,  the  twelfth  only  escaping ;  with  divers  other  persons." 

Captain  John  Smith  says:  "The  most  northern  part  I  was  at  was  the  Bay 
of  Penobscot,  which  is  east  and  west,  north  and  south,  more  than  ten  leagues; 
but  such  were  my  occasions  I  was  constrained  to  be  satisfied  of  them  I  found 
in  the  bay,  that  the  river  ran  far  up  into  the  land,  and  was  well  inhabited 
with  many  people ;  but  thejr  were  from  their  habitations,  either  fishing  among 
the  isles,  or  hunting  the  lakes  and  woods  for  deer  and  beavers. 

"  The  bay  is  full  of  great  islands  of  one,  two,  six,  eight,  or  ten  miles  in 
length,  which  divide  it  into  many  faire  and  excellent  good  harbours.  On 
the  east  of  it  are  the  Tarrantines,  their  mortal  enemies,  where  inhabit  the 


NEW  ENGLAND  OF  THE  ANCIENTS. 


25 


French,  as  they  report,  that  live  with  these  people  as  one  nation  or  fam 
ily." 

If  the  English  had  no  special  reason  for  self-gratulation  in  the  quality  of 
the  emigrants  first  introduced  into  New  England,  the  French  have  as  little 
ground  to  value  themselves.  In  order  to  people  Acadia,  De  Monts  begged 
permission  of  Henri  Quatre  to  take  the  vagabonds  that  might  be  collected  in 
the  cities,  or  wandering  at  large  through  the  country.  The  king  acceded  to 
the  request.1 


FAC-SIMILE   OF  FIRST   MAP  ENGRAVED  IN  NEW  ENGLAND. 

Again,  in  a  memoir  on  the  state  of  the  French  plantations,  the  following 
passage  occurs :  "  The  post  of  Pentagouet,  being  at  the  head  of  all  Acadia 
on  the  side  of  Boston,  appears  to  have  been  principally  strengthened  by  the 
sending  over  of  men  and  courtesans  that  his  majesty  would  have  emigrate 
there  for  the  purpose  of  marrying,  so  that  this  portion  of  the  colony  may  re 
ceive  the  accessions  necessary  to  sustain  it  against  its  neighbors."3 

These  statements  are  supported  by  the  testimony  of  the  Baron  La  Hon- 
tan,  who  relates  that,  after  the  reorganization  of  the  troops  in  Canada,  "  sev 
eral  ships  were  sent  hither  from  France  with  a  cargo  of  women  of  ordinary 
reputation,  under  the  direction  of  some  old  stale  nuns,  who  ranged  them  in 


Mass.  Archives,  French  Documents." 


Ibid. 


26  THE  NEW  ENGLAND   COAST. 

three  classes.  The  vestal  virgins  were  heaped  up  (if  I  may  so  speak),  one 
above  another,  in  three  different  apartments,  where  the  bridegrooms  singled 
out  their  brides  just  as  a  butcher  does  ewes  from  among  a  flock  of  sheep. 
The  sparks  that  wanted  to  be  married  made  their  addresses  to  the  above- 
mentioned  governesses,  to  whom  they  were  obliged  to  give  an  account  of 
their  goods  and  estates  before  they  were  allowed  to  make  their  choice  in  the 
seraglio."  After  the  selection  was  made,  the  marriage  was  concluded  on  the 
spot,  in  presence  of  a  priest  and  a  notary,  the  governor-general  usually  pre 
senting  the  happy  couple  with  some  domestic  animals  with  which  to  begin 
life  anew. 

When  the  number  of  historical  precedents  is  taken  into  account,  the  su 
perstition  long  current  among  mariners  with  regard  to  setting  sail  on  Friday 
seems  unaccountable.  Columbus  sailed  from  Spain  on  Friday,  discovered 
land  on  Friday,  and  returned  to  Palos  on  Friday.  Cabot  discovered  the 
American  continent  on  Friday.  Gosnold  sailed  from  England  on  Friday, 
made  land  on  Friday,  and  came  to  anchor  on  Friday  at  Exmouth.  These 
coincidences  might,  it  would  seem,  dispel,  with  American  mariners  at  least, 
something  of  the  dread  with  which  a  voyage  begun  on  that  day  has  long 
been  regarded. 


MOUNT  DESERT,  FROM  BLUE  HILL  BAY. 


CHAPTER  II. 

MOUNT   DESERT   ISLAND. 

"There,  gloomily  against  the  sky, 
The  Dark  Isles  rear  their  summits  high ; 
And  Desert  Rock,  abrupt  and  bare, 
Lifts  its  gray  turrets  in  the  air." 

WHITTIER. 

ISLANDS  possess,  of  themselves,  a  magnetism  not  vouchsafed  to  any  spot 
of  the  main-land.  In  cutting  loose  from  the  continent  a  feeling  of  freedom 
is  at  once  experienced  that  conies  spontaneously,  and  abides  no  longer  than 
you  remain  an  islander.  You  are  conscious,  in  again  setting  foot  on  the  main 
shore,  of  a  change,  which  no  analysis,  however  subtle,  will  settle  altogether  to 
your  liking.  Upon  islands  the  majesty  and  power  of  the  ocean  come  home 
to  you,  as  in  multiplying  itself  it  pervades  every  fibre  of  your  consciousness, 
gaining  in  vastness  as  you  grow  in  knowledge  of  it.  On  islands  it  is  always 
present — always  roaring  at  your  feet,  or  moaning  at  your  back. 

Islands  have  had  no  little  share  in  the  world's  doings.  Corsica,  Elba,  and 
St.  Helena  are  linked  together  by  an  unbroken  historical  chain.  Homer  and 
the  isles  of  Greece,  Capri  and  Tiberius  loom  in  the  twilight  of  antiquity. 
Thinking  on  Garibaldi  or  Victor  Hugo,  the  mind  instinctively  lodges  on  Ca- 
prera  or  Jersey.  An  island  was  the  death  of  Philip  II.,  and  the  ruin  of  Napo 
leon.  In  the  New  World,  Santo  Domingo,  Cuba,  and. Newfoundland  were 
first  visited  by  Europeans. 

The  islands  of  the  New  England  coast  have  become  beacons  of  her  history. 
Mount  Desert,  Monhegan,  and  the  Isles  of  Shoals,  Clark's  Island,  Nantucket, 
The  Vineyard,  and  Rhode  Island  have  havens  where  the  historian  or  antiqua 
ry  must  put  in  before  landing  on  broader  ground.  I  might  name  a  score  of 


28 


THE  NEW  ENGLAND  COAST. 


others  of  lesser  note ;  these  are  planets  in  our  watery  system.  On  this  line 
many  peaceful  summer  campaigns  have  been  brought  to  a  happy  conclusion. 
Not  a  few  have  described  the  more  genial  aspects  of  Mount  Desert.  It  has 
in  fact  given  employment  to  many  busy  pens  and  famous  pencils.  I  am  not 
aware  that  its  wintry  guise  has  been  portrayed  on  paper  or  on  canvas.  The 
very  name  is  instinctively  associated  with  an  idea  of  desolateness : 

"The  gray  and  thunder-smitten  pile 
Which  marks  afar  the  Desert  Isle." 

Champlain  was  no  doubt  impressed  by  the  sight  of  its  craggy  summits, 
stripped  of  trees,  basking  their  scarred  and  splintered  steeps  in  a  September 
sun.  "  I  have  called  it,"  he  says,  "  the  Isle  of  Monts  Deserts." 

_  In  a  little  " pattache"  of  only  seven 

teen  or  eighteen  tons  burden,  he  had  set 
out  on  the  2d  of  September,  1604,  from 
St.  Croix,  to  explore  the  coast  of  Norum- 
bega.  Two  natives  accompanied  him  as 
guides.  The  same  day,  as  they  passed 
close  to  an  island  four  or  five  leagues 
long,  their  bark  struck  a  hardly  sub 
merged  rock,  which  tore  a  hole  near  the 


0Fraifklm 


Slander's 
Vay 


MAP   OF   MOUNT   DESERT   ISLAND. 


MOUNT  DESERT  ISLAND. 


29 


keel.  They  either  sailed  around  the  island,  or  explored  it  by  land,  as  the 
strait  between  it  and  the  main-land  is  described  as  being  not  more  than  a 
hundred  paces  in 
breadth.  "The 
land,"  continues  the 
French  voyager, "  is 
very  high,  intersect 
ed  by  passes,  ap 
pearing  from  the  sea 
like  seven  or  eight 
mountains  ranged 
near  each  other. 
The  summits  of  the 
greater  part  of  these 
are  bare  of  trees,  be 
cause  they  are  noth 
ing  but  rocks."  It 
was  during  this  voy 
age,  and  with  equal 
pertinence,  Cham- 
plain  named  Isle  an 
Haut.1  According 
to  Pe re  Biard,  the 
savages  called  the 
island  of  Mount 
Desert  "Pemetiq? 
"  meaning,"  says  M.  PAbbe  Maurault,  "  that  which  is  at  the  head."  A 
crowned  head  it  appears,  seen  on  land  or  sea. 

It  is  curious  to  observe  how  the  embouchure  of  the  Penobscot  is  on  either 
shore  guarded  by  two  such  solitary  ranges  of  mountains  as  the  Camden  and 
Mount  Desert  groups.  They  embrace  about  the  same  number  of  individual 
peaks,  and  approximate  nearly  enough  in  altitude.  From  Camden  we  may 
skirt  the  shores  for  a  hundred  and  fifty  miles  to  the  west  and  south  before 
meeting  with  another  eminence ;  and  then  it  is  an  isolated  hill  standing  al 
most  upon  the  line  of  division  between  Maine  and  New  Hampshire  that  is 
encountered.  On  the  shore  of  the  main-land,  west  of  Mount  Desert,  is  Blue 
Hill,  another  lone  mountain.  Katahdin  is  still  another  astray,  of  grander 
proportions,  it  is  true,  but  belonging  to  this  family  of  lost  mountains.  Al 
though  they  appear  a  continuous  chain  when  massed  by  distance,  the  Mount 


SAMUEL  CHAMPLAIN. 


1  "Champlain's  Voyages,"  edit.  1613.  Mount  Desert  was  also  made  out  by  the  Boston  colo 
nists  of  1630.  The  reader  is  referred  for  materials  cf  Mount  Desert's  history  to  Champlain,  Char- 
levoix,  Lescarbot,  Biard,  and  Purchas,  vol.  iv. 


30  THE  NEW  ENGLAND  COAST. 

Desert  range  is,  in  reality,  broken  into  little  family  groups,  as  exhibited  on 
the  map. 

Another  peculiarity  of  the  Mount  Desert  chain  is  that  the  eastern  summits 
are  the  highest,  terminating  generally  in  precipitous  and  inaccessible  cliffs. 
I  asked  a  village  ancient  his  idea  of  the  origin  of  these  mountains,  and  re 
ceived  it  in  two  words,  "Hove  up."  The  cluster  numbers  thirteen  eminences, 
to  which  the  title  "Old  Thirteen"  may  be  more  fitly  applied  than  to  any  po 
litical  community  of  modern  history.  This  assemblage  of  hills  with  lakes  in 
their  laps  at  once  recalled  the  Adirondack  region,  with  some  needful  deduc 
tions  for  the  height  and  nakedness  of  the  former  when  compared  with  the 
greater  altitudes  and  grand  old  forests  of  the  wilderness  of  northern  New  York. 

Should  any  adventurous  spirit,  after  reading  these  pages,  wish  to  see  the 
Desert  Isle  in  all  its  rugged  grandeur,  he  may  do  so  at  the  cost  of  some  tri 
fling  inconveniences  that  do  not  fall  to  the  lot  of  the  summer  tourist.  In  this 
case,  Bangor  or  Bucksport  will  be  the  point  of  departure  for  a  journey  of  from 
thirty  to  forty  miles  by  stage.  I  came  to  the  island  by  steamboat  from  Bos 
ton,  which  landed  me  at  Bucksport;  whence  I  made  my  way  via  Ellsworth 
to  Somesville. 

After  glancing  at  the  map  of  the  island,  I  chose  Somesville  as  a  central 
point  for  my  excursions,  because  it  lies  at  the  head  of  the  sound,  that  divides 
the  island  almost  in  two,  is  the  point  toward  which  all  roads  converge, 
and  is  about  equally  distant  from  the  harbors  or  places  of  particular  resort. 
In  summer  I  should  have  adopted  the  same  plan  until  I  had  fully  explored 
the  shores  of  the  Sound,  the  mountains  that  are  contiguous,  and  the  western 
half  of  the  island.  In  twenty-four  hours  the  visitor  may  know  by  heart  the 
names  of  the  mountains,  lakes,  coves,  and  settlements,  with  the  roads  leading 
to  them ;  he  may  thereafter  establish  himself  as  convenience  or  fancy  shall 
dictate.  At  Somesville  there  is  a  comfortable  hostel,  but  the  larger  summer 
hotels  are  at  Bar  Harbor  and  at  South-west  Harbor. 

The  accentuation  should  not  fall  on  the  last,  but  on  the  first  syllable  of 
Desert,  although  the  name  is  almost  universally  mispronounced  in  Maine,  and 
notably  so  on  the  island  itself.  Usually  it  is  Mount  Desart,  toned  into  Desert 
by  the  casual  population,  who  thus  give  it  a  curious  significance. 

Mount  Desert  is  one  of  the  wardens  of  Penobscot  Bay,  interposing  its  bulk 
between  the  waters  of  Frenchman's  Bay  on  the  east  and  Blue  Hill  Bay  on 
the  west.  A  bridge  unites  it  with  the  main-land  in  the  town  of  Trenton, 
where  the  opposite  shores  approach  within  rifle-shot  of  each  other.  This 
point  is  locally  known  as  the  Narrows.  When  I  crossed,  the  tide  \vas  press 
ing  against  the  wooden  piers,  in  a  way  to  quicken  the  pace,  masses  of  newly- 
formed  ice  that  had  floated  out  of  Frenchman's  Bay  with  the  morning's  ebb. 

You  get  a  glimpse  of  Mount  Desert  in  sailing  up  Penobscot  Bay,  where 
its  mountains  appear  foreshortened  into  two  cloudy  shapes  that  you  would 
fail  to  know  again.  But  the  highest  hills  between  Bucksport  and  Ellsworth 


MOUNT  DESERT  ISLAND.  31 

display  the  whole  range ;  and  from  the  latter  place  until  the  island  is  reached 
their  snow-laced  sides  loomed  grandly  in  the  gray  mists  of  a  December  day. 
In  this  condition  of  the  atmosphere  their  outlines  seemed  more  sharply  cut 
than  when  thrown  against  a  background  of  clear  blue  sky.  I  counted  eight 
peaks,  and  then,  on  coming  nearer,  others,  that  at  first  had  blended  with  those 
higher  and  more  distant  ones,  detached  themselves.  Green  Mountain  will  be 
remembered  as  the  highest  of  the  chain,  Beech  and  Dog  mountains  from  their 
peculiarity  of  outline.  A  wider  break  between  two  hills  indicates  where  the 
sea  has  driven  the  wedge  called  Somes's  Sound  into  the  side  of  the  isle. 
Western  Mountain  terminates  the  range  on  the  right ;  Newport  Mountain, 
with  Bar  Harbor  at  its  foot,  is  at  the  other  extremity  of  the  group.  In  ap 
proaching  from  sea  this  order  would  appear  reversed. 

The  Somesville  road  is  a  nearly  direct  line  drawn  from  the  head  of  the 
Sound  to  the  Narrows.  Soon  after  passing  the  bridge,  that  to  Bar  Harbor 
diverged  to  the  left.  Crossing  a  strip  of  level  land,  we  began  the  ascent  of 

r~5  o  i  o 

Town  Hill  through  a  dark  growth  of  cedar,  fir,  and  other  evergreen  trees.  A 
little  hamlet,  where  there  is  a  post-office,  crowns  the  summit  of  Town  Hill. 
Not  long  after,  the  Sound  opened  into  view  one  of  those  rare  vistas  that  leave 
a  picture  for  after  remembrance.  At  first  it  seemed  a  lake  shut  in  by  the  feet 
of  two  interlocking  mountains,  but  the  vessels  that  lay  fast-moored  in  the  ice 
were  plainly  sea -going  craft.  Somesville  lay  beneath  us,  its  little  steeple 
pricking  the  frosty  air.  Cold,  gray,  and  cheerless  as  their  outward  dress  ap 
peared,  the  mountains  had  more  of  impressiveness,  now  that  they  were  cov 
ered  from  base  to  summit  with  snow.  They  seemed  really  mountains  and  not 
hills,  receiving  an  Alpine  tone  with  their  wintry  vesture. 

After  all,  a  winter  landscape  in  New  England  is  less  gloomy  than  in  the 
same  zone  of  the  Mississippi  Valley,  where,  in  the  total  absence  of  evergreen- 
trees,  nothing  but  long  reaches  of  naked  forest  rewards  the  eye,  which  roves 
in  vain  for  some  vantage-ground  of  relief.  Jutting  points,  well  wooded  with 
dark  firs,  or  clumps  of  those  trees  standing  by  the  roadside,  were  agreeable 
features  in  this  connection. 

A  brisk  trot  over  the  frozen  road  brought  us  to  the  end  of  the  half-dozen 
miles  that  stretch  between  Somesville  and  the  Narrows.  The  snow  craunch- 
ed  beneath  the  horses'  feet  as  we  glided  through  the  village  street ;  in  a  mo 
ment  more  the  driver  drew  up  with  a  flourish  beside  the  door  of  an  inn  which 
bears  for  its  ensign  a  name  advantageously  known  in  these  latitudes.  A 
rousing  fire  of  birchen  logs  blazed  on  the  open  hearth.  Above  the  mantel 
were  cheap  prints  of  the  presidents,  from  Washington  to  Buchanan.  I  was 
made  welcome,  and  thought  of  Shenstone  when  he  says, 

"  Whoe'er  has  travel'd  life's  dull  round, 

Whate'er  his  fortunes  may  have  been, 
Must  sigh  to  think  how  oft  he's  found 
Life's  warmest  welcome  at  an  inn." 


32 


THE  NEW  ENGLAND  COAST. 


HEAD   OF   SOMES' S   SOUND. 

An  island  fourteen  miles  long  and  a  dozen  broad,  embracing  a  hundred 
square  miles,  and  traversed  from  end  to  end  by  mountains,  is  to  be  approach 
ed  with  respect.  It  excludes  the  idea  of  superficial  observation.  As  the 
mountains  bar  the  way  to  the  southern  shores,  you  must  often  make  a  long 
detour  to  reach  a  given  point,  or  else  commit  yourself  to  the  guidance  of  a  deer- 
path,  or  the  dry  bed  of  some  mountain  torrent.  In  summer  or  in  autumn, 
with  a  little  knowledge  of  woodcraft,  a  well-adjusted  pocket-compass,  and  a 
stout  staff,  it  is  practicable  to  enter  the  hills,  and  make  your  way  as  the  red 
huntsmen  were  of  old  accustomed  to  do ;  but  in  winter  a  guide  would  be  in 
dispensable,  and  you  should  have  well-trained  muscles  to  undertake  it. 

The  mountains  have  been  traversed  again  and  again  by  fire,  destroying 
not  the  wood  alone,  but  also  the  thin  turf,  the  accumulations  of  years.  The 
woods  are  full  of  the  evidences  of  these  fires  in  the  charred  remains  of  large 
trees  that,  after  the  passage  of  the  flames,  have  been  felled  by  tempests.  At 
a  distance  of  five  miles  the  present  growth  resembles  stubble;  on  a  nearer 
approach  it  takes  the  appearance  of  underbrush  ;  and  upon  reaching  the  hills 
you  find  a  young  forest  repairing  the  ravages  made  by  fire,  wind,  and  the 
woodman's  axe.  "Fifty  years  ago,"  said  Mr.  Somes,  "those  mountains  were 
covered  with  a  dark  growth."  Cedars,  firs,  hemlocks,  and  other  evergreens, 
with  a  thick  sprinkling  of  white-birch,  and  now  and  then  a  clump  of  beeches, 
make  the  principal  base  for  the  forest  of  the  future  on  Mount  Desert — pro- 


MOUNT  DESEliT  ISLAND. 


33 


vicled  always  it  is  permitted  to  arrive  at  maturity.  Hitherto  the  poverty  or 
greed  of  the  inhabitants  has  sacrificed  every  tree  that  was  worth  the  labor  of 
felling.  In  the  neighborhood  of  Saulsbury's  Cove  there  are  still  to  be  seen, 
in  inaccessible  places,  trees  destined  never  to  feel  the  axe's  keen  edge. 

Mine  host  of  the  village  tavern,  Daniel  Somes,  or  "  Old  Uncle  Daniel,"  as 
he  is  known  far  and  near,  is  the  grandson  of  the  first  settler  of  the  name  who 
emigrated  from  Gloucester,  Massachusetts,  and  "squatted"  here  —  "a  vile 
phrase" — about  1760.  Abraham  Somes  built  on  the  little  point  of  land  in 
front  of  the  tavern-door,  from  which  a  clump  of  shrubs  may  be  seen  growing 
near  the  spot.  Other  settlers  came  from  Cape  Cod,  and  were  located  at  Hull's 
and  other  coves  about  the  island.  I  asked  my  landlord  if  there  were  any 
family  traditions  relative  to  the  short-lived  settlement  of  the  French,  or  traces 
of  an  occupation  that  might  well  have  set  his  ancestors  talking.  He  shook 
his  gray  head  in  emphatic  negative.  Had  I  asked  him  for  "Tarn  O'Shanter" 
or  the  "Brigs  of  Ayr,"  he  would  have  given  it  to  me  stanza  for  stanza. 

There  are  few  excursions  to  be  made  within  a  certain  radius  of  Somesville 
that  offer  so  much  of  variety  and  interest  as  that  on  the  western  side  of  the 
Sound,  pursuing,  with  such  wanderings  as  fancy  may  suggest,  the  well-beat 
en  road  to  South-west  Harbor.  It  is  seven  miles  of  hill  and  dale,  lake  and 
stream,  with  a  succession  of  charming  views  constantly  unfolding  themselves 
before  you.  And  here  I  may  remark  that  the  roads  on  the  island  are  gener 
ally  good,  and  easily  followed. 

The  map  may  have  so  far  introduced  the  island  to  the  reader  that  he  will 


34  THE  NEW  ENGLAND  COAST. 

be  able  to  trace  the  route  along  the  side  of  Robinson's  Mountain,  which  is  be 
tween  the  road  and  the  Sound,  with  two  summits  of  nearly  equal  height,  ris 
ing  six  hundred  and  forty  and  six  hundred  and  eighty  feet  above  it.  At  the 
right,  in  descending  this  road,  is  Echo  Lake,  a  superb  piece  of  water,  having 
Beech  Mountain  at  its  foot.  You  stumble  on  it,  as  it  were,  unawares,  and 
enjoy  the  surprise  all  the  more  for  it.  Broad-shouldered  and  deep-chested 
mountains  wall  in  the  reservoirs  that  have  been  filled  by  the  snows  melting 
from  their  sides.  There  are  speckled  trout  to  be  taken  in  Echo  Lake,  as 
well  as  in  the  pond  lying  in  Somesville.  Of  course  the  echo  is  to  be  tried, 
even  if  the  mount  gives  back  a  saucy  answer. 

Next  below  us  is  Dog  Mountain.  It  has  been  shut  out  from  view  until  you 
have  uncovered  it  in  passing  by  the  lake.  Dog  Mountain's  eastern  and  high 
est  crest  is  six  hundred  and  eighty  feet  in  the  air.  How  much  of  resemblance 
it  bears  to  a  crouching  mastiff  depends  in  a  great  measure  upon  the  imagina 
tion  of  the  beholder: 

Ham.   "Do  you  see  yonder  cloud  that's  almost  in  shape  of  a  camel? 

Pol.   "By  the  mass,  and  'tis  like  a  camel  indeed. 

Ham.   "Methinks  it  is  like  a  weasel. 

Pol.   "It  is  backed  like  a  weasel. 

Ham.   "Or  like  a  whale? 

Pol.   "Very  like  a  whale." 

Between  Dog  and  Brown's  Mountain  on  its  eastern  shore  the  Sound  has 
forced  its  way  for  six  or  seven  miles  up  into  the  centre  of  the  island.  At 
the  southern  foot  of  Dog  Mountain  is  Fernald's  Cove  and  Point,  the  sup 
posed  scene  of  the  attempted  settlement  by  the  colony  of  Madame  the  Mar 
chioness  De  Guercheville.  Mr.  De  Costa  has  christened  Brown's  Mount 
ain  with  the  name  of  Mansell,  from  Sir  Robert  Mansell,  vice-admiral  in  the 
times  of  James  I.  and  Charles  I.  The  whole  island  was  once  called  after  the 
knight,  but  there  is  a  touch  of  retributive  justice  in  recollecting  that  the 
English,  in  expelling  the  French,  have  in  turn  been  expelled  from  its  nomen 
clature. 

Turning  now  to  what  Prescott  calls  "historicals"  for  enlightenment  on  the 
subject  of  the  colonization  of  Mount  Desert,  it  appears  that  upon  the  return 
of  De  Monts  to  France  he  gave  his  town  of  Port  Royal  to  Jean  de  Poutrin- 
court,  wrhose  voyage  in  1606  along  the  coast  of  New  England  will  be  noticed 
in  future  chapters.  The  projects  of  De  Monts  having  been  overthrown  by  in 
trigue,  and  through  jealousy  of  the  exclusive  rights  conferred  by  his  patent, 
Madame  De  Guercheville,  a  "very  charitable  and  pious  lady"  of  the  court,1 
entered  into  negotiation  with  Poutrincourt  for  the  founding  of  Jesuit  missions 
among  the  savages.  Finding  that  Poutrincourt  claimed  more  than  he  could 
conveniently  establish  a  right  to,  Madame  treated  directly  with  Du  Guast,  who 

1  She  was  one  of  the  queen's  ladies  of  honor,  and  wife  of  the  Duke  of  Rochefoucauld  Liancourt. 


MOUNT  DESERT  ISLAND.  35 

ceded  to  her  all  the  privileges  derived  by  him  from  Henry  IV.  The  king,  in 
1607,  confirmed  all  except  the  grant  of  Port  Royal,  which  was  reserved  to 
Poutrincourt.  The  memorable  year  of  1610  ended  the  career  of  Henry,  in 
the  Rue  de  la  Ferronerie.  In  1611  the  fathers,  Pere  Biard  and  Enernond 
Masse,  of  the  College  d'Eu,  came  over  to  Port  Royal  with  Biencourt,  the 
younger  Poutrincourt.  During  the  next  year  an  expedition  under  the  au 
spices  of  Madame  De  Guercheville  was  prepared  to  follow,  and,  after  taking 
on  board  the  two  Jesuits  already  at  Port  Royal,  was  to  proceed  to  make  a 
definitive  settlement  somewhere  in  the  Penobscot. 

The  colonists  numbered  in  all  about  thirty  persons,  including  two  other 
Jesuit  fathers,  named  Jacques  Quentin  and  Gilbert  Du  Thet.1  The  expedition 
was  under  the  command  of  La  Saussaye.  In  numbers  it  was  about  equal  to 
the  colony  of  Gosnold. 

La  Saussaye  arrived  at  Port  Royal,  and  after  taking  on  board  the  fathers, 
Biard  and  Masse,  continued  his  route.  Arriving  off  Menan,  the  vessel  was 
enveloped  by  an  impenetrable  fog,  which  beset  them  for  two  days  and  nights. 
Their  situation  was  one  of  imminent  danger,  from  which,  if  the  relation  of  the 
Pere  Biard  is  to  be  believed,  they  were  delivered  by  prayer.  On  the  morn 
ing  of  the  third  day  the  fog  lifted,  disclosing  the  island  of  Mount  Desert  to 
their  joyful  eyes.  The  pilot  landed  them  in  a  harbor  on  the  east  side  of  the 
island,  where  they  gave  thanks  to  God  and  celebrated  the  mass.  They  named 
the  place  and  harbor  St.  Sauveur. 

Singularly  enough,  it  now  fell  out,  as  seven  years  later  it  happened  to  the 
Leyden  Pilgrims,  that  the  pilot  refused  to  carry  them  to  their  actual  destina 
tion  at  Kadesquit,2  in  Pentagoet  River.  He  alleged  that  the  voyage  was 
completed.  After  much  wrangling  the  affair  was  adjusted  by  the  appear 
ance  of  friendly  Indians,  who  conducted  the  fathers  to  their  own  place  of 
habitation.  Upon  viewing  the  spot,  the  colonists  determined  they  could  not 
do  better  than  to  settle  upon  it.  They  accordingly  set  about  making  a  lodg 
ment.3 

The  place  where  the.  colony  was  established  is  obscured  as  much  by  the 
relation  of  Biard  as  by  time  itself.  The  language  of  the  narration  is  calcu 
lated  to  mislead,  as  the  place  is  spoken  of  as  "  being  shut  in  by  the  large  island 
of  Mount  Desert."  The  Jesuit  had  undoubtedly  full  opportunity  of  becom 
ing  familiar  with  the  locality,  and  his  account  was  written  after  the  dissolu 
tion  of  the  plantation  by  Argall.  There  is  little  doubt  they  were  inhabiting 
some  part  of  the  isle,  as  Champlain  in  general  terms  asserts.  Meanwhile  the 
grassy  slope  of  Fernald's  Point  gains  many  pilgrims.  The  brave  ecclesiastic, 
Du  Thet,  could  not  have  a  nobler  monument  than  the  stately  cliffs  graven  by 


1  Champlain  :  Mr.  Shea  says  he  was  only  a  lay  brother. 

3  This  has  a  resemblance  to  Kenduskeag,  and  was  probably  the  present  Bangor. 

8  Charlevoix  says  the  landing  was  on  the  north  side  of  the  island. 


36  THE   NEW  ENGLAND  COAST. 

lightning  and  the  storm  with  the  handwriting  of  the  Omnipotent.  The  puny 
reverberations  of  Argall's  broadsides  were  as  nothing  compared  with  the  ar 
tillery  that  has  played  upon  these  heights  out  of  cloud  battlements. 

During  the  summer  of  1613,  Samuel  Argall,  learning  of  the  presence  of 
the  French,  came  upon  them  unawares,  and  in  true  buccaneer  style.  A  very 
brief  and  unequal  conflict  ensued.  Du  Thet  stood  manfully  by  his  gun,  and 
fell,  mortally  wounded.  Captain  Flory  and  three  others  also  received  wounds. 
Two  were  drowned.  The  French  then  surrendered. 

Argall's  ship  was  called  the  Treasurer.  Henri  de  Montmorency,  Admiral 
of  France,  demanded  justice  of  King  James  for  the  outrage,  but  I  doubt  that 
he  ever  received  it.  He  alleged  that,  besides  killing  several  of  the  colonists 
and  transporting  others  as  prisoners  to  Virginia,  Argall  had  put  the  remain 
der  in  a  little  skiff  and  abandoned  them  to  the  mercy  of  the  waves.  Thus 
ended  the  fourth  attempt  to  colonize  New  England. 

Argall,  it  is  asserted,  had  the  baseness  to  purloin  the  commission  of  La 
Saussaye,  as  it  favored  his  project  of  plundering  the  French  more  at  his  ease, 
the  two  crowns  of  England  and  France  being  then  at  peace.  He  was  af 
terward  knighted  by  King  James,  and  became  a  member  of  the  Council  of 
Plymouth,  and  Deputy-governor  of  Virginia,  During  a  second  expedition  to 
Acadia,  he  destroyed  all  traces  of  the  colony  of  Madame  De  Guercheville.  It 
is  pretty  evident  he  was  a  bold,  bad  man,  as  the  more  his  character  is  scanned 
the  less  there  appears  in  it  to  admire. 

Brother  Du  Thet,  standing  with  smoking  match  beside  his  gun,  was  wor 
thy  the  same  pencil  that  has  illustrated  the  defense  of  Saragossa.  I  marvel 
much  the  event  has  not  been  celebrated  in  verse. 

An  enjoyable  way  of  becoming  acquainted  with  Somes' s  Sound  is  to  take  a 
wherry  at  Somesville  and  drift  slowly  down  with  the  ebb,  returning  with  the 
next  flood.  In  some  respects  it  is  better  than  to  be  under  sail,  as  a  landing- 
is  always  easily  made,  and  defiance  may  be  bidden  to  head  winds. 

One  of  the  precipices  of  Dog  Mountain,  kno\vn  as  Eagle  Cliff,  has  always 
attracted  the  attention  of  the  artists,  as  \vell  as  of  ajl  lovers  of  the  beautiful 
and  sublime.  There  has  been  much  search  for  treasure  in  the  glens  here 
abouts,  directed  by  spiritualistic  conclaves.  One  too  credulous  islander,  in 
his  fruitless  delving  after  the  pirate  Kidd's  buried  hoard,  has  squandered  the 
"•old  of  his  own  life,  and  is  worn  to  a  shadow. 

£3  " 

When  some  one  asked  Moll  Pitcher,  the  celebrated  fortune-teller  of  Lynn, 
to  disclose  the  place  where  this  same  Kidd  had  secreted  his  wealth,  promis 
ing  to  give  her  half  of  what  was  recovered,  the  old  witch  exclaimed,  "  Fool ! 
if  I  knew,  could  I  not  have  all  myself?"  Kidd's  wealth  must  have  been  be 
yond  computation.  There  is  scarcely  a  headland  or-an  island  from  Montauk 
to  Grand  Menan  which  according  to  local  tradition  does  not  contain  some 
portion  of  his  spoil. 

Much  interest  is  attached  to  the  shell  heaps  found  on  Fernald's  Point  and 


MOUNT  DESERT  ISLAND. 


37 


at  Sand  Point  opposite.  There 
are  also  such  banks  at  Hull's 
Cove  and  elsewhere.  Indian 
implements  are  occasionally 
met  with  in  these  deposits.  It  is 
reasonably  certain  that  some  of 
them  are  of  remote  antiquity. 
Williamson  states  that  a  heavy 
growth  of  trees  was  found  by 
the  first  settlers  upon  some  of 
the  shell  banks  in  this  vicin 
ity.1  Associated  with  these 
relics  of  aboriginal  occupation 
is  the  print  in  the  rock  near 
Cromwell's  Cove,  called  the 
"Indian's  Foot."  It  is  in  ap 
pearance  the  impression  of  a 
tolerably  shaped  foot,  fourteen 
inches  long  and  two  deep.  The 
common  people  are  not  yet 
freed  from  the  superstitions 
of  two  centuries  ago,  which 
ascribed  all  such  accidental 
marks  to  the  Evil  One. 

In  my  progress  by  the 
road  to  South  -  west  Harbor, 
I  was  intercepted  near  Dog 
Mountain  by  a  sea -turn  that  soon  became  a  steady  drizzle.  This  afford 
ed  me  an  opportunity  of  seeing  some  fine  dissolving  views:  the  sea- mists 
advancing,  and  enveloping  the  mountain-tops,  cheated  the  imagination  with 
the  idea  that  the  mountains  were  themselves  receding.  A  storm-cloud,  black 
and  threatening,  drifted  over  Sargent's  Mountain,  settling  bodily  down  upon 
it,  deploying  and  extending  itself  until  the  entire  bulk  disappeared  behind  an 
impenetrable  curtain.  It  was  like  the  stealthy  approach  and  quick  cast  of  a 
mantle  over  the  head  of  an  unsuspecting  victim. 

Very  few  were  abroad  in  the  storm,  but  I  saw  a  nut-cracker  and  chickadee 
making  the  best  of  it.  I  remarked  that  under  branching  spruces  or  fir-trees 
the  grass  was  still  green,  and  the  leaves  of  the  checker-berry  bright  and  glossy 
as  in  September.  On  this  road  admirable  points  of  observation  constantly 
occur  from  which  to  vie,w  the  shifting  contours  of  Beech  and  Western  mount 
ains,  with  the  broad  and  level  plateau  extending  along  their  northern  base- 


CLIFFS,  DOG  MOUNTAIN,  SOMES'S  SOUND. 


"History  of  Maine,"  vol.  i.,  p.  80. 


38 


THE  NEW  ENGLAND  COAST. 


line  far  to  the  westward.  Retracing  with  the  eye  this  line,  you  see  a  little 
hamlet  snugly  ensconced  on  the  hither  slope  of  Beech  Mountain,  while  the 
plateau  is  rounded  off  into  the  bluffs  rising  above  Eagle  Lake. 

South-west  Harbor  is  usually  the  stranger's  first  introduction  to  Mount 
Desert.  The  approach  to  it  is  consequently  invested  with  peculiar  interest 
to  all  who  know  how  to  value  first  impressions.  Its  neighborhood  is  less 
wild  and  picturesque  than  the  eastern  shores  of  the  island,  but  Long  Lake 
and  the  western  range  of  mountains  are  conveniently  accessible  from  it ; 
while,  by  crossing  or  ascending  the  Sound,  avenues  are  opened  in  every  di 
rection  to  the  surpassing  charms  of  this  favored  corner  of  New  England. 

At  South-west  Harbor  the  visitor  is  usually  desirous  of  inspecting  the 
sea-wall,  or  cheval-de-frise  of  shattered  rock,  that  skirts  the  shore  less  than 
three  miles  distant  from  the  steamboat  landing.  And  he  may  here  witness 


THE   STONE   WALL. 


an  impressive  example  of  what  the  ocean  can  do.  An  irregular  ridge  of  a 
mile  in  length  is  piled  with  shapeless  rocks,  against  which  the  sea  beats  with 
tireless  impetuosity. 

Fog  is  the  bane  of  Mount  Desert.  Its  frequency  during  the  months  of 
July  and  August  is  an  important  factor  in  the  sum  of  outdoor  enjoyment. 
Happily,  it  is  seldom  of  long  continuance,  as  genial  sunshine  or  light  breezes 
soon  disperse  it. 

There  is,  however,  a  weird  sort  of  fascination  in  standing  on  the  shore  in  a 
fog.  You  are  completely  deceived  as  to  the  nearness  either  of  objects  or  of 
sounds,  though  the  roll  of  the  surf  is  more  depended  upon  by  experienced 
ears  than  the  fog-bell.  In  sailing  near  the  land  every  one  has  noticed  the 
recoil  of  sounds  from  the  shore,  as  voices,  or  the  beat  of  a  steamer's  paddles. 
Coming  through  the  Mussel  Ridge  Channel  one  unusually  thick  morning,  the 
fog  suddenly  "scaled  up,"  discovering  White  Head  in  uncomfortable  proxim 
ity.  The  light-house  keeper  stood  in  his  door,  tolling  the  heavy  fog-bell  that 


MOUNT   DESERT   ISLAND. 


39 


ENTRANCE   TO   SOMES'S   SOUND. 


we  had  believed  half  a  mile  away. 

Our  pilot  gave  him  thanks  with  three 

blasts  of  the  steam-whistle. 

Off  the  entrance  to  the  Sound  are 

several  islands — Great  Cranberry,  of 
five  hundred  acres;  Little  Cranberry,  of  two  hundred  acres;  and,  farther  in 
shore,  Lancaster's  Island,  of  one  hundred  acres.  The  eastern  channel  into  the 
Sound  is  between  the  two  last  named.  Duck  Island,  of  about  fifty  acres,  is 
east  of  Great  Cranberry;  and  Baker's,  on  which  is  the  light-house,  is  the  out 
ermost  of  the  cluster. 

The  cranberry  is  indigenous  to  the  whole  extent  of  the  Maine  sea-board. 
It  grows  to  perfection  on  the  borders  of  wet  meadows,  but  I  have  known  it 
to  thrive  on  the  upland.  The  culture  has  been  found  very  remunerative  in 
localities  less  favored  by  nature,  as  at  Cape  Cod  and  on  the  New  Jersey 
coast.  Some  attempts  at  cranberry  culture  have  recently  been  made  with 
good  success  at  Lemoine,  on  the  main-land,  opposite  Mount  Desert.  Blue 
berries  are  abundant  on  Mount  Desert.  I  saw  one  young  girl  who  had 
picked  enough  in  a  week  to  bring  her  seven  dollars.  Formerly  they  were 
sent  off  the  island,  but  they  are  now  in  good  demand  at  the  hotels  and 
boarding-houses.  In  poorer  families  the  head  of  it  picks  up  a  little  money 
by  shore -fishing.  He  plants  a  little  patch  with  potatoes,  dressing  the  land 
with  sea-weed,  which  costs  him  only  the  labor  of  gathering  it.  His  fire-wood 
is  as  cheaply  procured  from  the  neighboring  forest  or  shore,  and  in  the  au 
tumn  his  wife  and  children  gather  berries,  which  are  exchanged  for  necessa 
ries  at  the  stores. 

At  the  extreme  southerly  end  of  Mount  Desert  is  Bass  Harbor,  with  three 
islands  outlying.  It  is  landlocked,  and  a  well-known  haven  of  refuge. 


PROFESSOK  AGASSIZ. 


CHAPTER  III. 

CHRISTMAS    ON    MOUNT    DESERT. 

"Yon  should  have  seen  that  long  hill-range, 

With  gaps  of  brightness  riven — 
How  through  each  pass  and  hollow  streamed 

The  purpling  light  of  heaven — " 

WHITTIER. 

HAVING  broken  the  ice  a  little  with  the  reader,  I  shall  suppose  him  pres 
ent  on  the  most  glorious  Christmas  morning  a  New  England  sun  ever 
shone  upon.  "A  green  Christmas  makes  a  fat  church-yard,"  says  an  Old- 
country  proverb;  this  was  a  white  Noel,  cloudless  and  bright.  I  saw  that 
the  peruke  of  my  neighbor  across  the  Sound,  Sargent's  Mountain,  had  been 
freshly  powdered  during  the  night;  that  the  rigging  of  the  ice-bound  craft 


CHRISTMAS  OX  MOUNT  DESERT.  41 

harbored  between  us  was  incased  in  solid  ice,  reflecting  the  sunbeams  like 
burnished  steel.  The  inscription  on  mine  host's  sign-board  was  blotted  out 
by  the  driving  sleet;  the  brown  and  leafless  trees  stood  transfigured  into  ob 
jects  of  wondrous  beauty.  I  heard  the  jingle  of  bells  in  the  stable-yard  and 
the  stamping  of  feet  below  stairs,  and  then 

"  I  heard  nne  mair,  for  Chanticleer 

Shook'  off  the  pouthery  snaw, 
And  hail'd  the  morning  with  a  cheer, 
A  cottage-rousing  craw." 

The  roads  from  Bar  Harbor  and  from  North-east  Harbor  unite  within  a 
short  distance  of  Somesville,  and  enter  the  village  together.  Within  these 
highways  is  embraced  a  large  proportion  of  those  picturesque  features  for 
which  the  island  is  famed.  In  this  area  are  the  highest  mountains,  the  bold 
est  headlands,  the  deepest  indentations  of  the  shores.  It  is  not  for  nothing, 
therefore,  that  Bar  Harbor  has  become  a  favorite  rendezvous  of  the  throngs 

"That  seek  the  crowd  they  seem  to  fly." 

On  Christmas -day  the  road  to  Bar  Harbor  was  an  avenue  of  a  winter 
palace  more  sumptuous  than  that  by  the  Neva.  Every  spray  of  the  dark 
evergreen  trees  was  heavily  laden  with  a  light  snow  that  plentifully  besprin 
kled  us  in  passing  beneath  the  often  overreaching  branches.  The  stillness 
was  unbroken.  Blasted  trees  —  gaunt,  withered,  and  hung  with  moss  like 
rags  on  the  shrunken  limbs  of  a  mendicant  —  were  now  incrusted  with  ice- 
crystals,  that  glittered  like  lustres  on  gigantic  candelabra.  On  the  top  of 
some  rounded  hill  there  sometimes  was  standin^  the  bare  stem  of  a  blasted 

Z3 

pine,  where  it  shone  like  the  spike  on  a  grenadier's  helmet.  It  was  a  scene 
of  enchantment. 

I  saw  frequent  tracks  where  the  deer  had  come  down  the  mountain  and 
crossed  the  road,  sometimes  singly,  sometimes  in  pairs,  and  in  search,  no 
doubt,  of  water.  The  foot-prints  of  foxes,  rabbits,  and  grouse  were  also  com 
mon.  During  the  day  I  met  an  islander  who  told  me  he  had  shot  a  fat  buck 
only  a  day  or  two  before,  and  that  many  deer  were  still  haunting  the  mount 
ains.  Formerly,  but  so  long  ago  that  only  tradition  preserves  the  fact,  there 
were  black  bear  and  moose ;  and  traces  of  beaver  are  yet  to  be  seen  in  their 
dams  and  houses.  Red  foxes  and  mink,  and  occasionally  the  black  fox,  great 
ly  valued  for  its  fur,  are  taken  by  the  hunters.  In  order  to  make  the  roads 
interesting  to  nocturnal  travelers,  rumor  was  talking  of  a  panther  and  a  wolf 
that  had  been  seen  within  a  short  time. 

In  the  day  when  these  coasts  were  stocked  with  beaver,  its  skin  was  the 
common  currency  of  the  country,  as  well  of  the  Indians  as  of  the  whites.  It 
was  greatly  prized  in  Europe,  and  constituted  the  wealth  of  the  savages  of 
northern  New, England,  who  were  wholly  unacquainted  with  wampum  until 


42  THE  NEW  ENGLAND  COAST. 

it  was  introduced  among  them  by  the  Plymouth  trading-posts  on  the  Penol> 
scot  and  Kennebec. 

The  wigwam  of  a  rich  chief  would  be  lined  with  beaver-skins,  and,  if  he 
were  very  rich,  his  guests  were  seated  on  packs  of  it.  Then,  as  now,  a  suitor 
was  not  the  less  acceptable  if  he  came  to  his  mistress  with  plenty  of  beaver. 
It  was  the  Indians'  practice  to  kill  only  two-thirds  of  the  beaver  each  season, 
leaving  a  third  for  increase.  The  English  hunters  killed  all  they  found,  rap 
idly  exterminating  an  animal  which  the  Indian  believed  to  be  possessed  of 
preternatural  sagacity. 

Our  road,  after  crossing  a  northern  spur  of  Sargent's  Mountain,  which  lifts 
itself  more  than  a  thousand  feet  above  the  sea,  led  on  over  a  succession  of 
hills.  Beyond  Sargent's,  Green  Mountain  stood  unveiled,  with  what  seemed 
the  tiniest  of  cottages  perched  on  its  summit.  Ere  long  Eagle  Lake  lay  out 
stretched  at  the  right,  but  it  was  in  the  trance  of  winter.  The  painter, 
Church,  whose  favorite  ground  lay  about  due  south,  christened  the  lake, 
doubtless  with  a  palmful  of  water  from  its  own  baptismal  font.  The  road 
way  is  thrown  across  its  outlet  where  the  timbers  of  an  old  mill,  that  some 
time  ago  had  gorged  itself  with  the  native  forest,  lay  rotting  and  overthrown. 

Green  Mountain  overpeers  all  the  others.  On  its  summit  you  are  fifteen 
hundred  and  thirty-five  feet  higher  than  the  sea.  On  this  account  it  was  se 
lected  as  a  landmark  for  the  survey  of  the  neighboring  coasts.  It  is  not  dif 
ficult  of  ascent,  as  the  mountain  road  built  by  the  surveyors  is  considered 
practicable  for  carriages  nearly  or  quite  to  the  top.  I  had  anticipated  as 
cending  it,  but  the  new-fallen  snow  rendered  walking  difficult,  and  I  was 
forced  to  content  myself  with  viewing  it  from  all  sides  of  approach. 

An  acquaintance  with  the  sierras  of  either  half  of  the  continent  exercises  a 
restraining  influence  in  presence  of  an  upheaval  comparatively  slight,  yet  it  is 
only  in  a  few  favored  instances  that  one  may  stand  on  the  summits  of  very 
high  mountains  and  look  down  upon  the  sea.  New  England,  indeed,  boasts 
greater  elevations  at  some  distance  from  her  sea -coast,  among  which  the 
Mount  Desert  peaks  would  appear  dwarfed  into  respectable  hills.  On  a  clear 
day,  and  under  conditions  peculiarly  favorable,  a  distant  glimpse  of  Katah- 
din  and  of  Mount  Washington  may  be  had  from  the  crest  of  Green  Mount 
ain.  In  summer  the  little  house  is  open  for  the  refreshment  of  weary  but  ad 
venturous  pilgrims. 

Here  I  would  observe  that  the  island  nomenclature  is  painfully  at  variance 
with  whatever  is  suggestive  of  felicitous  rapport  with  its  natural  character 
istics.  The  name  of  Mount  Desert,  it  is  true,  is  singularly  appropriate;  but 
then  it  was  given  by  a  Frenchman  with  an  eye  for  truth  in  picturesqueness. 
In  the  year  1796,  when  the  north  half  of  the  island  was  formed  into  a  town 
ship,  it  was  called,  with  sublimated  irony,  Eden.  Green  Mountain  is  not  more 
green  than  its  neighbors.  At  the  Ovens  I  saw  plenty  of  yeast,  but  not  enough 
to  leaven  the  name.  Schooner  Head  is  not  more  apposite. 


CHRISTMAS  ON  MOUNT  DESERT. 


43 


:--  \ 

VIEW  OF  EAGLE  LAKE  AND  THE  SEA  FKOM  GREEN  MOUNTAIN. 

Just  before  coming  into  Bar  Harbor  there  is  an  excellent  opportunity  of 
observing  the  cluster  of  islands  to  which  it  owes  existence.  These  are  the 
Porcupine  group,  and  beyond,  across  a  broad  bay,  the  Gouldsborough  hills 
appeared  in  a  Christmas  garb  of  silvery  whiteness.  The  Porcupine  Islands, 
four  in  number,  lie  within  easy  reach  of  the  shore,  Bar  Island,  the  nearest,  be 
ing  connected  with  the  main-land  at  low  ebb.  On  Bald  Porcupine  General 
Fremont  has  pitched  his  head-quarters.  It  was  the  sea  that  was  fretful  when 
I  looked  at  the  islands,  though  they  bristled  with  erected  pines  and  cedars. 

The  village  at  Bar  Harbor  is  the  sudden  outgrowth  of  the  necessities  of  a 
population  that  cornes  with  the  roses,  and  vanishes  with  the  first  frosts  of  au 
tumn.  It  has  neither  form  nor  comeliness,  though  it  is  admirably  situated 
for  excursions  to  points  on  the  eastern  and  southern  shores  of  the  island  as 
far  as  Great  Head  and  Otter  Creek.  A  new  hotel  was  building,  notwithstand 
ing  the  last  season  had  not  proved  as  remunerative  as  usual.  I  saw  that  pure 
water  was  brought  to  the  harbor  by  a  wooden  aqueduct  that  crossed  the  val 
ley  on  trestles,  after  the  manner  practiced  in  the  California  mining  regions, 
and  there  called  a  flume.  There  is  a  beach,  with  good  bathing  on  both  sides 
of  the  landing,  though  the  low  temperature  of  the  water  in  summer  is  hardly 
calculated  for  invalids. 

From  Bar  Harbor,  a  road  conducts  by  the  shore,  southerly,  as  far  as  Great 
Head,  some  five  miles  distant.  After  following  this  route  for  a  long  mile, 


44 


THE  NEW  ENGLAND   COAST. 

- 


CLIFFS   ON    BALD   POKCUPINE. 


as  it  seemed,  it  divides,  the  road  to  the  right  leading  on  five  miles  to  Otter 
Creek,  and  thence  to  North-east  Harbor,  seven  miles  beyond.  Excursions  to 
Great  Head,  and  to  Newport  Mountain  and  Otter  Creek,  should  occupy  sepa 
rate  days,  as  the  shores  are  extremely  interesting,  and  the  scenery  unsurpass 
ed  in  the  whole  range  of  the  island. 

In  pursuing  his  explorations  at  or  near  low-water  mark,  it  will  be  best  for 


CHRISTMAS  ON  MOUNT  DESERT. 


45 


the  tourist  to  begin  a  ramble  an  hour  before  the  tide  has  fully  ebbed.  The 
tides  on  this  coast  ordinarily  rise  and  fall  about  twelve  feet,  and  in  winter,  as 
I  saw,  frequently  eighteen  feet.  Hence  the  advance  and  retreat  of  the  waves 
is  not  only  rapid,  but  leaves  a  broader  margin  uncovered  than  in  Massachu 
setts  Bay,  where  there  is  commonly  not  more  than  eight  feet  of  rise  and  fall. 
In  many  places  along  the  arc  of  the  shore  stretching  between  Bar  Harbor 
and  Great  Head,  the  ascent  to  higher  ground  is,  to  say  the  least,  difficult,  and, 
in  some  instances,  progress  is  forbidden  by  a  beetling  cliff  or  impassable 
chasm.  As  time  is  seldom  carefully  noted  when  one  is  fairly  engaged  in 
such  investigations,  it  is  always  prudent  first  to  know  your  ground,  and  next 
to  keep  a  wary  eye  upon  the  stealthy  approach  of  the  sea. 


SOUTHERLY  END  OF   NEWPORT  MOUNTAIN,  NEAR   THE  SAND  BEACH. 

There  is  a  pleasant  ramble  by  the  shore  to  Cromwell's  Cove ;  but  here  on 
ward  movement  is  arrested  by  a  cliff  that  turns  you  homeward  by  a  cross- 
path  through  the  fields  to  the  road,  after  having  whetted  the  appetite  for 
what  is  yet  in  reserve. 

Schooner  Head  is  reached  by  this  road  in  about  four  miles  from  Bar  Har 
bor,  and  three  from  the  junction  of  the  Otter  Creek  road.  I  walked  it  easily 
in  an  hour.  The  way  is  walled  in  on  the  landward  side  by  the  abrupt  preci 
pices  of  Newport  Mountain,  in  the  sheer  face  of  which  stunted  firs  are  niched 
here  and  there.  Very  much  they  soften  the  hard,  unyielding  lines  and  cold 


46 


THE  NEW  ENGLAND   COAST. 


gray  of  the  crags;  the  eye  lingers  kindly  on  their  green  chaplets  cast  about 
the  frowning  brows  of  wintry  mountains.  This  morning  all  were  Christmas- 
trees,  and  the  ancients  of  the  isle  hung  out  their  banners  to  greet  the  day. 

Emerging  from  the  woods  at  a  farm-house  at  the  head  of  a  cove,  a  foot 
path  leads  to  the  promontory  at  its  hither  side.  It  is  thrust  a  little  out  from 
the  land,  sheltering  the  cove  while  itself  receiving  the  full  onset  of  the  sea. 
An  intrusion  of  white  rock  in  the  seaward  face  is  supposed  by  those  of  an  im 
aginative  turn  to  bear  some  resemblance  to  a  schooner;  and,  in  order  to  com 
plete  the  similitude,  two  flag-staffs  had  been  erected  on  the  top  of  the  cliff. 
At  best,  I  fancy  it  will  be  found  a  phantom  ship  to  lure  the  mariner  to  de 
struction. 

I  did  not  find  Schooner  Head  so  remarkable  for  its  height  as  in  the  evi 
dences  everywhere  of  the  crushing  blows  it  has  received  while  battling  with 
storms.  "Hard  pounding  this,  gentlemen;  but  we  shall  see  who  can  pound 
longest,"  said  the  Iron  Duke  at  Waterloo.  Here  are  the  rents  and  ruins  of 
ceaseless  assault  and  repulse.  The  ocean  is  slowly  but  steadily  advancing 
on  both  sides  of  the  continent ;  perchance  it  is,  after  all,  susceptible  of  calcula 
tion  how  long  the  land  shall  endure. 

I  clambered  among  the  huge  blocks  of  granite  that  nothing  less  than 
steam  could  now  have  stirred,  although  they  had  once  been  displaced  by  a 
few  drops  of  water  acting  together.  A  terrible  rent  in  the  east  side  of  the 
cliff  is  locally  known  as  the  Spouting  Horn.  Down  at  its  base  the  sea  has 
worn  through  the  rock,  leaving  a  low  arch.  At  the  flood,  with  sufficient  sea 
on,  and  an  off-shore  wind,  a  wave  rolls  in  through  the  cavity,  mounts  the 
escarpment,  and  leaps  high  above  the  opening  with  a  roar  like  the  booming 
of  heavy  ordnance.  These  natural  curiosities  are  not  nnfrequent  along  the 


CAVE  OF  THE  SEA,  SCHOONER  HEAD. 


CHRISTMAS  ON  MOUNT  DESERT. 


coast.  There  Is  one  of  considerable 
power  at  Cape  Arundel,  Maine,  that 
I  have  heard  when  two  miles  from 
the  spot.  Unfortunately  for  the  tour 
ist,  these  grand  displays  are  usual 
ly  in  storms,  when  few  care  to  be 
abroad;  undoubtedly,  the  outward 
man  may  be  protected  and  the  in 
ward  exalted  at  such  times.  Some 
of  the  more  adventurous  go  through 
the  Horn  :  I  went  around  it. 

I  saw  here  a  few  ruminant  sheep 
gazing  off  upon  the  sea.  What  should 
a  sheep  see  in  the  ocean  ? 

On  the  farther  side  of  the  cove  is 
a  sea-cavern  that  has  the  reputation 
of  being  the  finest  on  the  island. 
Within  its  gloomy  recesses  are  rock 
pools  of  rare  interest  to  the  natural 
ist.  In  proper  season  they  will  be 
found  inhabited  by  the  sea-anemone 
and  other  and  more  debatable  forms 
of  animal  life.  Some  of  these  aquaria 
I  have  seen  are  of  marvelous  beauty, 
recalling  the  lines, 

"Full  many  a  gem  of  purest  ray  serene 
The  dark  unfathomed  caves  of  ocean  bear." 

Lined  with  mother-of-pearl  and  scar 
let  mussels,  resting  on  beds  of  soft 
sponge  or  purple  moss -tufts,  these 
fairy  grottoes  are  the  favorite  retreat 
of  King  Crab  and  his  myrmidons,  of 
the  star-fish  and  sea-urchin.  Twice 
in  every  twenty-four  hours  the  basins 
are  refilled  with  pure  sea-water,  than 
which  nothing  can  be  more  transpar 
ent.  Strange  that  these  rugged  crags, 
where  the  grasp  of  man  would  be  loos 
ened  by  the  first  wave,  should  be  in 
stinct  with  life !  It  required  some 
force  to  detach  a  mussel  from  its  bed, 
and  you  must  have  recourse  to  your  knife  to  remove  the  barnacles  with 


CLIFFS  AT   SCHOONER   HEAD. 


48 


THE   NEW  ENGLAND   COAST. 


DEVIL'S   DEN   AND   SCIIOONEK   HEAD. 


which  the  smoother  rocks  are  incrusted.  John  Adams,  when  he  first  saw  the 
sea-anemone,  compared  it,  in  figure  and  feeling,  to  a  young  girl's  breast. 

Mount  Desert  lias  been  familiar  to  two  of  the  greatest  of  American  natu 
ralists.  When  Audubon  was  preparing  his  magnificent  "Birds  of  America," 
he  visited  the  island,  and  I  have  no  doubt  the  report  of  his  rifle  was  often 
heard  echoing  among  the  mountains  or  along  the  shores.  Agassiz  was  also 
here,  interrogating  the  rocks,  rapping  their  stony  knuckles  with  his  hammer, 
or  pressing  their  gaunt  ribs  with  playful  familiarity.  Audubon  died  in  1851. 
Agassiz  is  more  freshly  remembered  by  the  present  generation,  to  whom  he 
made  the  pathway  of  Natural  Science  bright  by  his  genius,  and  pleasant,  by 
his  genuine,  whole-hearted  bonhomie. 

In  1858  the  French  Government  devoted  itself,  with  extreme  solicitude,  to 
the  reorganization  of  the  administration  of  the  Museum  of  Natural  History 
of  the  tTardin  des  Plantes  at  Paris.  It  appears  that,  in  spite  of  a  first  refusal, 
several  times  repeated,  Agassiz  at  length  consented  to  accept  the  direction  of 
the  museum.  The  Emperor,  who  had  formed  a  personal  acquaintance  with 
the  celebrated  naturalist  during  his  sojourn  in  Switzerland,  pursued  with  cus 
tomary  pertinacity  his  favorite  idea  of  alluring  M.  Agassiz  to  Paris.  He  was 
offered  a  salary  of  twenty-five  thousand  francs ;  and  it  was  understood  he 
was  promised,  besides,  elevation  to  the  dignity  of  senator,  of  which  the  ap 
pointments  were  worth  twenty-five  thousand  francs  more. 


CHRISTMAS  ON   MOUNT  DESERT.  49 

I  have  thought  it  fitting  to  give  Agassiz's  own  report  of  his  first  introduc 
tion  to  an  American  public : 

"When  I  came  to  Boston,"  said  he,  "the  first  course  which  I  gave  had 
five  thousand  auditors,  and  I  was  obliged  to  divide  them  into  two  sections  of 
twenty-five  hundred  each,  and  to  repeat  each  lesson.  This  course  was  given 
in  the  large  hall  of  the  Tremont  Temple." 

"  Do  you  think,"  he  was  asked,  "  that  in  such  a  crowd  it  was  the  fashion 
or  the  desire  for  instruction  which  dominated  ?" 

"No  doubt,"  he  replied,  "it  was  a  serious  desire  for  instruction.  I  have 
plenty  of  proofs  of  it  coming  from  persons  belonging  to  the  lower  classes. 
For  instance,  it  is  usual  here  to  accord  to  persons  who  go  out  to  service  full 
liberty  after  a  certain  hour  in  the  evening,  solely  to  go  to  the  course  of  lec 
tures  ;  that  is  made  a  part  of  the  agreement.  A  lady  who  had  a  very  strong 
desire  to  hear  me,  told  me  that  it  was  impossible  for  her  to  do  so.  Her  cook 
was  the  first  informed  of  my  announcement,  took  the  initiative,  and  obtained 
her  promise  of  liberty  for  the  hour  of  the  evening  when  I  taught,  and  left  her 
mistress  to  take  care  of  the  house  alone.  On  her  return  she  explained  .very 
clearly  what  I  had  said." 

The  slow  sale  of  Agassiz's  works  in  Europe  decided  him  to  pass  fifteen 
months  in  the  United  States;  and  the  revolution  of  1848  changed  this  inten 
tion  into  a  purpose  of  permanent  residence.  Agassiz  was  tall,  corpulent,  bent, 
rather  by  continual  study  than  with  age.  His  forehead  was  broad,  high,  and 
a  little  retreating ;  his  countenance  conspicuously  Swiss,  by  the  largeness  of 
his  features,  the  gravity  and  benevolence  of  his  expression.  His  hair  was  gray, 
and  little  abundant.  He  spoke  German  and  English  with  facility,  but  had  to 
some  extent  unlearned  his  French.  Although  his  conversation  was  without 
volubility,  when  he  grew  animated  in  talking  upon  great  questions  his  ex 
pression  became  noble  and  majestic.  "There  was  in  him  a  remarkable  force 
of  thought  and  will.  He  appeared  like  a  man  who  makes  haste  slowly ;  but 
notwithstanding  the  adage,  no  one  can  withhold  an  involuntary  astonishment 
at  the  great  works  he  has  been  able  to  achieve."  Agassiz  belonged  to  the 
noblesse  of  science  and  of  literature.  When  such  men  die  they  can  not  be 
said  to  leave  legitimate  successors. 

Mount  Desert  has  itself  produced  a  man  of  marked  usefulness  in  David 
Wasgatt  Clark,  D.D.,  a  Wesleyan  divine,  who  was  elected  bishop  in  1864.  He 
accomplished  extensive  literary  labors,  was  intrusted  with  high  and  responsi 
ble  positions,  and  although  a  puny  boy,  the  jest  of  his  companions  of  a  more  ro 
bust  mould,  completed  nearly  threescore  years  of  a  laborious  and  eventful  life. 

From  Schooner  Head  I  pursued  my  way  by  the  road  to  Great  Head.  And 
while  en  route  I  should  not  forget  the  Lynam  Homestead,  to  which  Cole, 
Church,  Gifford,  Hart,  Parsons,  Warren,  Bierstadt,  and  others  renowned  in 
American  art  have  from  time  to  time  resorted  to  enrich  their  studios  from 
the  abounding  wealth  of  the  neighborhood. 

4 


50  THE  NEW  ENGLAND   COAST. 

One  of  the  first  artists  to  come  to  the  island  was  Fisher.  Church,  whose 
name  is  associated  with  its  rediscovery,  did  not  always  come  for  work.  On 
one  occasion,  as  leader  of  a  merry  party,  he  was  lost  on  Beech  Mountain,  and 
passed  the  night  there.  With  rare  prevision  he  had  provided  an  axe,  with 
plenty  of  robes  and  wraps.  At  the  foot  of  the  mountain  the  carriage  was 
sent  back  to  the  village.  Church  was  too  good  a  woodman  not  to  use  his 
axe  to  make  a  shanty  of  boughs,  while  the  robes,  when  spread  upon  fragrant 
heaps  of  spruce,  made  excellent  couches  for  the  laughing  girls  that  were  un 
der  his  protection.  Meanwhile  consternation  reigned  at  Somesville.  Messen 
gers  were  sent  hither  and  thither  in  haste;  but  no  tidings  arrived  of  the  ab 
sent  ones  until  the  next  morning,  wThen  they  entered  the  village  as  if  nothing 
unusual  had  happened. 

Great  Head  is  easily  found.  The  road  we  have  been  pursuing  comes  to 
an  abrupt  ending  at  a  house  within  a  short  half-mile  of  it.  Follow  the  shore 
backward  toward  Schooner  Head,  and  you  will  stand  in  presence  of  the  bold 
est  headland  in  all  New  England.  I  saw  that  no  foot-print  but  my  own  had 
lately  passed  that  way.  There  was  something  in  thus  having  it  all  to  one's 
self. 

To  appreciate  Great  Head  one  must  stand  underneath  it ;  but  the  descent, 
always  difficult,  was  rendered  perilous  by  the  newly-formed  ice.  By  dint  of 
perseverance  I  at  last  stood  upon  the  ledge  beneath,  that  extends  out  like  a 
platform  for  some  distance  toward  deep  water.  It  was  the  right  stage  of  the 
tide.  I  looked  up  at  the  face  of  the  cliff.  It  was  bearded  with  icicles,  like 
the  Genius  of  Winter.  Along  the  upper  edge  appeared  the  interlacing  roots 
of  old  trees  grasping  the  scanty  soil  like  monster  talons.  Stunted  birches, 
bent  by  storms,  skirted  its  brow,  and  at  sea  add  to  its  height.  From  top  to 
bottom  the  face  of  the  cliff  is  a  mass  of  hard  granite,  overhanging  its  founda 
tions  in  impending  ruin,  shivered  and  splintered  as  if  torn  by  some  tremen 
dous  explosion.  I  could  only  think  of  the  last  sketch  of  Delaroche. 

The  sea  rolls  in  great  waves  that  overwhelm  every  thing  within  their 
reach.  More  than  once  I  started  back  at  the  approach  of  one  qf  them.  Just 
outside  the  first  line  of  breakers  rode  a  flock  of  wild  fowl,  and  occasionally 
the  mournful  cry  of  a  loon,  or  shriller  scream  of  a  sea-gull,  mingled  with  the 
roar  of  the  surf.  Farther  out,  at  the  distance  of  a  mile,  a  wicked-looking  rock 
and  ledge  was  flinging  off  the  seas,  flecking  its  tawny  flanks  with  foam,  like  a 
war-horse  impatiently  champing  at  his  bit. 

Looking  off  from  Great  Head  to  the  eastward,  the  main-land  is  perceived 
trending  away  until  it  loses  itself  in  the  ocean.  At  the  extremity  of  this  land 
is  Schoodic  Point  and  Mountain,  with  Mosquito  Harbor  indenting  it  The 
water  between  is  not  the  true  "  Baye  Fran9oise"  of  Champlain,  Lescarbot, 
and  others.  The  appellation  belongs  of  right  to  the  Bay  of  Fundy,  perpetu 
ating  as  it  does  the  misadventure  of  Nicolas  Aubri,  one  of  the  company  of  De 
Monts,  who  was  lost  in  the  woods  there.  As  this  is  not  the  only  historic  an- 


' 


CHRISTMAS  ON  MOUNT  DESERT.  53 

achronism  by  many  that  may  be  met  with  on  our  coasts,  I  do  not  propose  to 
quarrel  with  it,  the  less  that  a  Frenchman  was  the  first  white  here.  The  name 
has  been  current  for  about  a  century,  though  on  old  French  maps  it  is  found 
to  lie  farther  east. 

The  north  wind  was  beating  down  yesterday's  sea,  sweeping  over  the  bil 
lows,  and  whirling  their  crests  far  away  to  leeward.  Along  the  rocks  the 
foam  lay  like  wool-fleeces,  or  was  whisked  about,  dabbling  the  grim  face  of 
the  cliff  with  creamy  spots.  Other  headlands  were  mailed  in  ice. 

Mount  Desert  Rock  is  about  twenty  miles  south-south-east  of  the  island, 
and  from  fourteen  to  eighteen  from  the  nearest  land.  It  has  a  light-house, 
built  upon  naked,  shapeless  ledges.  There  is  another  on  Baker's  Island,  off 
the  entrance  to  Somes's  Sound. 

Natural  sea-marks,  like  Great  Head  Cliff,  are  preferred  by  mariners  to 
artificial  buoys  or  beacons.  No  one  that  has  seen  them  will  be  likely  to  for 
get  the  Pan  of  Matanzas,  or  the  Cabanas  of  Havana.  Before  the  excellent 
system  inaugurated  by  the  United  States  Coast  Survey,  trees,  standing  singly 
or  in  groups,  often  gave  direction  how  to  steer  on  a  dangerous  coast.  Some 
times  they  were  lopped  on  one  side,  or  made  to  take  some  peculiarity  of  shape 
that  would  distinguish  them  from  all  others.  Thus  some  solitary  old  cedar 
becomes  a  guide-board  known  to  all  who  travel  on  ocean  highways. 

The  next  point  of  interest  will  be  found  at  Otter  Creek,  which  may  be 
reached  in  good  weather  by  sailing,  by  the  direct  road  from  Bar  Harbor,  al 
ready  mentioned,  or  by  crossing  the  lower  ridge  of  Newport  Mountain  from 
Great  Head. 

After  a  last  look  at  the  sea,  which  was  of  a  dingy  green,  and  broke  angri 
ly  as  far  as  the  eye  could  reach  in  the  offing,  I  entered  the  trail  that  was  to 
bring  me  to  Otter  Creek. 

Newport's  southern  peak  was  just  overhead,  its  sharp  protuberances  made 
smooth  by  knobs  of  ice  that  resembled  the  bosses  of  a  target.  There  reached 
me  occasional  rapid  glimpses  of  the  sea  in  ascending,  but  I  walked  chiefly 
in  a  dense  growth  that  excluded  all  light,  except  when  the  glint  of  the  sun 
through  the  tree-tops  fell  in  golden  bars  across  my  way.  Prostrate  and  use 
lessly  rotting  was  wood  enough  to  have  kept  a  good-sized  village  through 
the  winter.  The  air  was  light  and  elastic.  I  do  not  think  a  pleasanter  ram 
ble  is  to  be  had  on  the  island  than  this  forest-walk. 

"O'er  windy  hill,  through  clogged  ravine, 
And  woodland  paths  that  wound  between 
Low  drooping  pine-boughs  winter-weighed.*1 

At  Otter  Creek  is  a  scattered  settlement  and  an  inlet  of  the  sea,  into 
which  the  creek  empties.  The  island  traditions  say  the  place  was  once  the 
favorite  retreat  of  the  otter.  There  are  cliffs  to  admire  or  study  on  the  sea 
shore,  and  Thunder  Cave  is  there  to  explore. 


54  THE  NEW  ENGLAND   COAST. 

In  this  pocket-edition  of  Somes's  Sound  we  find  ourselves  once  more  under 
the  shadow  of  Green  Mountain,  and  upon  looking  back  up  the  valley  a  pass 
opens  between  it  and  Newport,  through  which  the  road  finds  its  way  to  Bar 
Harbor. 

The  dwellings  here,  as  elsewhere  on  the  island,  are  humble,  and  bespeak, 
in  many  instances,  a  near  approach  to  poverty.  In  the  larger  villages  there 
are  comfortable  and  even  substantial  residences,  but  the  impression  of  un- 
thrift  is  associated  with  the  proper  population.  The  reasons  are  obvious. 
The  first  inhabitants  got  their  livelihood  by  fishing,  and  formerly  many  ves 
sels  were  fitted  out  from  the  Sound.  Perhaps  not  a  few  went  for  the  Govern 
ment  bounty.  With  the  failure  of  this  industry  little  was  left  on  which  to 
depend.  A  scanty  subsistence  at  most  could  be  wrung  from  the  soil,  though 
Williamson,  the  historian  of  Maine,  avers  this  was  once  strong  and  fertile  in 
the  valleys.  The  land,  by  the  removal  of  crops  without  restoring  the  ele 
ments  essential  to  it,  has  been  growing  poorer  year  by  year.  A  little  hay  is 
cut  on  the  uplands,  and  at  Pretty  Marsh  are  some  hundreds  of  acres  of  salt 
meadow.  The  mountains  have  been  stripped  of  their  wood  to  the  last  mer 
chantable  tree.  At  this  unpromising  juncture  the  island  became  suddenly 
famous,  and  is  now  among  the  most  frequented  of  American  summer  resorts. 
None  could  be  more  astonished  at  their  own  prosperity  than  these  islanders, 
who,  being,  as  a  wThole  and  in  a  marked  degree,  incapable  of  appreciating  the 
grandeur  of  the  scenes  with  which  they  have  from  infancy  been  familiar,  look 
with  scarce  concealed  disdain  upon  the  admiration  they  inspire  in  others. 

Some  handsome  cottages  have  already  sprung  out  of  the  prevailing  ugli 
ness  at  Bar  Harbor.  At  Great  Head  a  tract  of  considerable  extent  has  been 
inclosed.  The  star  of  Mount  Desert  is  clearly  in  the  ascendant,  as,  however 
prudent  the  city  man  may  be  at  home,  all  purse-strings  are  loosened  at  the 
sea-side.  The  French  proverb,  "II  faitt  faire  ou  se  taire"  is  usually  con 
strued  into  the  modern  barbaric  "  play  or  pay"  at  the  shore.  Not  one  of  these 
worthy  landlords  was  ever  known  to  fall,  like  Vatel,  on  his  own  sword  be 
cause  there  was  not  enough  roast  meat.  Nevertheless,  at  the  risk  of  for 
feiting  the  reader's  good  opinion,  I  will  say  that  there  are  landlords  with 
consciences,  and  I  have  both  seen  and  spoken  with  such  on  Mount  Desert. 

Another  of  my  excursions,  which  afforded  new  entertainment  with  new 
scenes,  was  a  pedestrian  jaunt  from  Otter  Creek  to  North-east  Harbor.  This 
route  commands  fine  ocean  views  in  the  direction  of  the  entrance  to  the 
Sound  and  of  the  outlying  islands.  You  first  open  Seal  Cove,  and,  crossing 
the  shingle  road  at  its  head,  in  two  miles  and  a  half  of  farther  progress  skirt 
ing  the  eastern  shore  of  the  Sound,  arrive  at  the  head  of  North-east  Harbor, 
an  inconsiderable  village,  in  which  Williamson  conjectures  La  Saussaye  final 
ly  landed. 

Seven  miles  more  along  the  eastern  base  of  Brown's  Mountain,  in  the 
sombre  shadows  of  which  the  road  nestles,  brings  us  back  to  the  tavern  door 


CHRISTMAS  ON   MOUNT  DESERT. 


55 


at  Somesville.  This  road 
crosses  a  limb  of'Had lock's 
Pond,  and  is  skirted  for 
some  distance  by  a  fine 
grove  of  beeches.  In  sum 
mer-time  this  part  of  the 
route  is  traversed  under 
a  canopy  of  overarching 
branches,  whose  dense  fo 
liage  excludes  all  but  a 
few  straggling  rays  that 
let  fall  a  shimmer  of  de 
licious  sunlight,  for  the 
moment  glorifying  all  that 
pass  beneath. 

It  may  chance  that  the 
visitor  will  first  pass  over 
the  section  already  trav 
ersed  in  these  pages ;  or  it 
may  so  fall  out  that  he  will 
decide  to  undertake  a  run 
by  the  shore  north  of  Bar 
Harbor  in  advance  of  oth 
er  excursions.  In  this  case 
Saulsbury's  Cove  and  the 
"Ovens"  become  his  ob 
jective. 

I  have  already  fore 
warned  the  reader  that  it 
is  six  or  seven  miles  from 
any  initial  point  to  any 
other  given  point  on  Mount 
Desert  Island.  This  equal 
ity  of  distance  sometimes 
makes  a  choice  embarrass 
ing,  since  in  selecting  from 
two  routes  the  preference 
is  usually  given  to  the 
shorter.  But  it  will  some 
times  happen  that  he  will 
find  these  longer  than  stat 
ute  miles,  or  that  when 
pursuing  his  way  with  all 


THE   OVENS,  8AULSBUKY  8   COA 


56  THE  NEW  ENGLAND   COAST. 

imaginable  confidence,  it  is  suddenly  blocked  by  a  mountain  or  a  precipice. 
These  contingencies  make  walking  preferable.  A  horse  is  no  doubt  a  very 
useful  animal  where  there  are  roads. 

It  is  practicable  at  low  tide  to  reach  the  Ovens  by  the  beach,  but  as  this 
involves  many  difficulties,  it  is  better  to  take  the  road  beyond  Hull's  Cove, 
two  miles  from  Bar  Harbor.  The  cove  is  said  to  have  been  named  for  a 
brother  of  General  William  Hull.  It  was  resorted  to  quite  early  in  the  set 
tlement  of  the  island.  Here  was  the  dwelling  -  place  of  the  Gregoires,  to 
whom  Massachusetts  ceded  the  whole  island  upon  proof,  exhibited  in  1787, 
that  Madame  Gregoire  was  the  lineal  descendant  of  Cadillac,  who  claimed 
under  his  grant  from  Louis  .XIV.  in  1688.1  The  meditative  reader  may 
ponder  upon  this  resumption  under  a  French  title  as  an  evidence  that  time 
at  last  makes  all  things  even.  It  would  not  seem  inappropriate,  inasmuch  as 
two  women  have  had  so  prominent  a  share  in  the  history  of  Mount  Desert, 
to  perpetuate  the  names  of  Guercheville  and  Gregoire.  The  graves  of  the 
Gregoires  may  be  seen  near  the  north-east  corner  of  the  burial-ground. 
Monsieur  is  asserted  to  have  been  a  bon-vivant. 

The  Ovens  are  caverns  hollowed  out  by  the  waves  in  the  softer  masses 
of  the  cliffs.  When  the  tide  is  completely  down  a  pebbly  beach  shelves  away 
to  low-water  mark.  The  feldspar  and  porphyry  of  which  the  rocks  are  com 
posed  impart  a  cheerfulness  to  the  walls  of  these  grottoes  more  pleasing  after 
descending  into  the  gloomy  recesses  of  the  south  shore.  Near  the  Ovens  is 
a  passage  driven  through  a  projecting  cliff,  known  as  Via  Mala. 

In  passing,  the  reader  will  give  me  leave  to  mention  another  woman  whose 
influence  was  felt  in  the  affairs  of  Acadia.  It  was  Henrietta,  Duchesse  d'Or- 
leans,  and  aunt  of  Louis  XIV.,  who  obtained  the  relinquishrnent  of  Acadia  by 
her  husband,  Charles  I.  of  unfortunate  memory,  under  the  peace  of  1632.  The 
fate  of  the  widowed  queen  is  involved  in  one  of  the  most  repulsive  chapters 
of  history.  According  to  contemporary  accounts,  she  fell  a  victim  to  the 
reign  of  the  poisoners  in  the  time  of  Louis.  By  the  testimony  of  the  Marquis 
Dangeau  and  other  annalists  of  the  times,  the  poison  had  been  sent  by  the 
Chevalier  De  Lorraine,  her  lover,  then  in  England. 

The  reader  may  now  complete  the  circuit  of  the  island  at  leisure.  In  tak 
ing  leave  of  these  hills,  I  would  observe  that  although  not  every  one  is  pos 
sessed  of  a  knowledge  of  woodcraft,  or  of  the  muscles  of  a  mountaineer,  it  is 
far  better  to  depart  the  beaten  paths  and  to  seek  out  new  conquests.  For  my 
own  part,  I  may  safely  guarantee  that  in  finding  himself  for  the  first  time  on 
Mount  Desert,  the  visitor  will  be  as  thoroughly  surprised  as  impressed  in  the 
presence  of  natural  scenes  so  pronounced  in  character,  and  so  unique  in  their 
relation  to  and  environment  by  the  sea. 

1  See  Williamson,  vol.  i.,  p.  79;  "Resolves  of  Massachusetts,"  July  and  November,  1787; 
"New  York  Colonial  Documents,"  vol.  ix.,  p.  594.  Mr.  De  Costa  has  given  a  summary  of  these 
in  his  pleasant  little  book. 


CHRISTMAS   ON  MOUNT  DESERT. 


57 


In  my  way  to  and  from  this  remote  corner  of  New  England,  it  was  my 
fortune  to  encounter  a  single  instance  of  that  inquisitorial  propensity  known 
the  world  over  as  Yankee  curiosity.  On  arriving  at  a  late  hour  at  Ellsworth, 
the  landlord,  a  great  burly  fellow,  drew  a  chair  close  to  mine,  pushed  his  hat 
back  from  his  brows — every  body  here  wears  his  hat  in  the  house — spat  in 
the  grate,  smote  his  knees  with  his  big  palms,  and  said, 

"  Look  a  here,  mister !  I  know  'tan't  none  o'  my  business ;  but  what  might 
you  be  agoin' to  Mount  Desart  arter?"  And  in  the  same  breath, "I'm  from 
Mount  Desart." 

"Certes,"  thought  I,  "  if  it's  none  of  your  business,  why  do  you  ask?" 

The  same  publican  afterward  let  a  fellow- wayfarer  and  myself  a  sick 
horse  that  proved  unfit  to  travel  when  we  were  well  upon  our  journey.  I 
forgave  him  all  but  the  making  me  the  unwilling  instrument  of  his  cruelty  to 
a  dumb  beast. 


.  ,.V;- 


CASTINE,  APPROACHING  FROM  ISLESBORO. 

CHAPTER  IV. 

CASTINE. 

"A  wind  came  up  out  of  the  sea, 
And  said,  'O  mists,  make  room  for  me.'" 

LONGFELLOW. 

WHOEVER  has  turned  over  the  pages  of  early  New  England  history  can 
not  fail  to  have  had  his  curiosity  piqued  by  the  relations  of  old  French 
writers  respecting  this  extreme  outpost  of  French  empire  in  America.  The 
traditions  of  the  existence  of  an  ancient  and  populous  city,  going  far  beyond 
any  English  attempt  in  this  corner  of  the  continent,  are  of  themselves  suf 
ficient  to  excite  the  ardent  pursuit  of  an  antiquary,  and  to  set  all  the  busy 
hives  of  historical  searchers  in  a  buzz  of  excitement. 

That  scoffer,  Lescarbot,  would  dispose  of  the  ancient  city  of  Nbrnmbega 
as  Voltaire  would  have  disposed  of  the  Christian  religion — with  a  sarcasm ; 
but,  if  there  be  truth  in  the  apothegm  that  "  seeing  is  believing,"  the  fore 
runners  of  Champlain  came,  saw,  and  made  a  note  of  it.  "  Now,"  says  the  ad 
vocate,  "if  that  beautiful  city  was  ever  in  nature,  I  should  like  to  know  who 
demolished  it ;  for  there  are  only  a  few  cabins  here  and  there,  made  of  poles 
and  covered  with  the  bark  of  trees  or  skins;  and  both  habitation  and  river 
are  called  Pemptegoet,  and  not  Agguricia."1 

I  approached  the  famed  river  in  a  dense  fog,  in  which  the  steamer  cautious 
ly  threaded  her  way.  Earth,  sky,  and  water  were  equally  indistinguishable. 
A  volume  of  pent  steam  gushing  from  the  pipes  hoarsely  trumpeted  our  ap 
proach,  and  then  streamed  in  a  snow-white  plume  over  the  taffrail,  and  was 
lost  in  the  surrounding  obscurity.  The  decks  were  wet  with  the  damps  of 

2  Lescarbot,  vol.  ii.,  p.  471. 


CASTINE.  59 

the  morning ;  the  few  passengers  stirring  seemed  lifeless  and  unsocial.  Here 
and  there,  as  we  floated  in  the  midst  of  this  cloud,  the  paddles  impatiently 
beating  the  water,  were  visible  the  topmasts  of  vessels  at  anchor,  though  in 
the  dimness  they  seemed  wonderfully  like  the  protruding  spars  of  so  many 
sunken  craft.  Hails  or  voices  from  them  sounded  preternaturally  loud  and 
distinct,  as  also  did  the  noise  of  oars  in  fog-bewildered  boats.  The  blast  of  a 
fog-horn  near  or  far  occasionally  sounded  a  hoarse  refrain  to  the  warning  that 
issued  from  the  brazen  throat  of  the  Titan  chained  in  our  galley. 

At  this  instant  the  sun  emerging  from  his  dip  into  the  sea,  glowing  with 
power,  put  the  mists  to  flight.  First  they  parted  on  each  side  of  a  broad 
pathway  in  which  sky  and  water  re-appeared.  Then,  before  brighter  gleams, 
they  overthrew  and  trampled  upon  each  other  in  disorderly  rout.  A  few 
scattered  remnants  drifted  into  upper  air  and  vanished;  other  masses  clung 
to  the  shores  as  if  inclined  still  to  dispute  the  field.  Owl's  Head  light-house 
came  out  at  the  call  of  the  enchanter,  blinking  its  drowsy  eyes;  then  sunlit 
steeples  and  lofty  spars  glanced  up  and  out  of  the  fog-cloud  that  enveloped 
the  city  of  Rockland. 

The  vicinity  of  a  town  had  been  announced  by  cock-crowing,  the  rattling 
of  wheels,  or  occasional  sound  of  a  bell  from  some  church-tower;  but  all  these 
sounds  seemed  to  heighten  the  illusions  produced  by  the  fog,  and  to  endow 
its  impalpable  mass  with  ghostly  life.  Vessels  under  sail  appeared  weird  and 
spectral — phantom  ships,  that  came  into  view  for  a  moment  and  dissolved  an 
instant  after — masts,  shrouds,  and  canvas  melting  away — 

"As  clouds  with  clouds  embrace." 

Rockland  is  n,  busy  and  enterprising  place  in  the  inchoate  condition  of 
comparative  newness,  and  of  the  hurry  that  postpones  all  improvements  not 
of  immediate  utility.  Until  1848  it  had  no  place  on  the  map.  Back  of  the 
settled  portion  of  Rockland  is  a  range  of  dark  green  hills,  with  the  easy 
slopes  and  smooth  contours  of  a  limestone  region.  I  know  not  if  Rockland 
will  ever  be  finished,  for  it  is  continually  disemboweling  itself,  coining  its 
rock  foundations,  until  perchance  it  may  some  day  be  left  without  a  leg  to 
stand  on. 

Penobscot  Bay  is  magnificent  in  a  clear  day.  The  fastidious  De  Monts 
surveyed  and  passed  it  by.  Singularly  enough,  the  French,  who  searched 
the  New  England  coast  from  time  to  time  in  quest  of  a  milder  climate  and 
more  fertile  soil  than  that  of  Canada,  were  at  last  compelled  to  abide  by  their 
first  discoveries,  and  inhabit  a  region  sterile  and  inhospitable  by  comparison. 
Had  it  fallen  out  otherwise,  Quebecs  and  Louisburgs  might  have  bristled 
along  her  sea-coast,  if  not  have  changed  her  political  destiny. 

Maine  has  her  forests,  her  townships  of  lime,  her  granite  islands,  her  seas 
of  ice — all,  beyond  dispute,  raw  products.  Fleets  detach  themselves  from  the 
banks  of  the  Penobscot  and  float  every  year  away. 


60  THE  NEW  ENGLAND  COAST. 

"One  goes  abroad  for  merchandise  and  trading, 
Another  stays  to  keep  his  country  from  invading, 
A  third  is  coming  home  with  rich  and  wealthy  lading. 
Halloo!    my  fancie,  whither  wilt  thou  go?" 

The  sumptuous  structures  we  erect  of  her  granite  are  only  so  many  mon 
uments  to  Maine.  I  have  seen,  on  the  other  side  of  the  continent,  a  town 
wholly  built  of  Maine  lumber.  While  Boston  was  yet  smoking,  her  neighbor 
was  getting  ready  the  lumber  and  granite  to  rebuild  her  better  than  ever. 
So  these  great  rivers  become  as  mere  mill-streams  in  the  broader  sense,  and, 
at  need,  a  telegraphic  order  for  a  town  or  a  fleet  would  be  promptly  filled. 

There  is  no  corner,  however  remote,  into  which  Maine  enterprise  does  not 
penetrate.  The  spirit  of  adventure  and  speculation  has  pushed  its  commerce 
everywhere.  With  a  deck-load  of  lumber,  some  shingles,  or  barrels  of  lime, 
schooners  of  a  few  tons  burden,  and  manned  with  three  or  four  hands,  may  be 
met  with  hundreds  of  miles  at  sea,  steering  boldly  on  in  search  of  a  buyer. 
An  English  writer  narrates  his  surprise  at  seeing  in  the  latitude  of  Hatteras, 
at  the  very  height  of  a  terrific  storm,  when  the  sea,  wreathed  with  foam,  was 
rolling  before  the  gale,  one  of  these  buoyant  little  vessels  scudding  like  a  spir 
it  through  the  mingling  tempest,  with  steady  sail  and  dry  decks,  toward  the 
distant  Bahamas. 

Rockland  was  formerly  a  part  of  Thomaston,1  and  is  upon  ground  ancient-* 
ly  covered  by  the  Muscongus,  or  Waldo  patent,  which  passed  through  the 
ownership  of  some  personages  celebrated  in  their  day.  A  very  brief  resume 
of  this  truly  seignorial  possession  will  assist  the  reader  in  forming  some  idea 
of  the  state  of  the  old  colonial  magnates.  It  will  also  account  to  him  for  the 
names  of  the  counties  of  Knox  and  Lincoln. 

Prior  to  the  JFrench  Revolution  there  were  distinctions  in  society  after 
ward  unknown,  the  vestiges  of  colonial  relations.  Men  in  office,  the  wealthy, 
and  above  all,  those  who  laid  claim  to  good  descent,  were  the  gentry  in 
the  country.  Habits  of  life  and  personal  adornment  were  outward  indica 
tions  of  superiority.  The  Revolution  drove  the  larger  number  of  this  class 
into  exile,  but  there  still  continued  to  be,  on  the  patriots'  side,  well-defined 
ranks  of  society.  There  was  also  a  class  who  held  large  landed  estates,  in 
imitation  of  the  great  proprietors  of  England.  These  persons  formed  a  coun 
try  gentry,  and  were  the  great  men  of  their  respective  counties.  They 
held  civil  and  military  offices,  and  were  members  of  the  Great  and  General 
Court. 

The  Muscongus  patent  was  granted  by  the  Council  of  Plymouth,  in  1630, 
to  John  Beauchamp  of  London,  and  John  Leverett  of  Boston,  England.  It 
embraced  a  tract  thirty  miles  square,  extending  between  the  Muscongus  and 
Penobscot,  being  limited  on  the  west  and  north  by  the  Kennebec  patent, 

1  Named  for  General  John  Thomas,  of  the  Revolution. 


CASTINE. 


61 


mentioned  hereafter  as  granted  to  our  colony  of  Plymouth.  Besides  Rock- 
land  and  Thomaston,  the  towns  of  Belfast,  Camden,  Warren,  and  Waldoboro 
are  within  its  former  bounds.  In  1719  the  Mnscongus  grant  was  divided  for 
the  purpose  of  settlement  into  ten  shares,  the  ten  proprietors  assigning  two- 
thirds  of  it  to  twenty  as 
sociates.  I  have  examined 
the  stiff  black-letter  parch 
ment  of  1719,  and  glanced 
at  its  pompous  formalities. 
At  this  time  there  was  not 
a  house  between  George 
town  and  Annapolis,  ex 
cept  on  Damariscove  Isl 
and.1 

The  Waldo  family  be 
came  in  time  the  largest 
owners  of  the  patent. 
Samuel  Waldo,  the  brig 
adier,  was  the  intimate 
friend  of  Sir  William  Pep- 
perell,  with  whom  he  had 
served  at  Louisburg.  They 
were  born  in  the  same  year, 
and  died  at  nearly  the  same 
time.  Their  friendship  was 
to  have  perpetuated  itself 
by  a  match  between  Han 
nah,  the  brigadier's  daugh-  GENERAL  HENKY  KNOX. 
ter,  and  Andrew,  the  son  of  Sir  William.  After  a  deal  of  courtly  correspond 
ence  that  plainly  enough  foreshadows  the  bitter  disappointment  of  the  old 
friends,  Hannah  refused  to  marry  Andrew,  the  scape-grace.  In  six  weeks  she 
gave  her  hand,  a  pretty  one,  'tis  said,  to  Thomas  Flucker,  and  with  it  went  a 
nice  large  slice  of  the  patent.  Flucker  became  the  last  secretary,  under 
crown  rule,  of  Massachusetts.  He  decamped  with  his  friends  the  royalists,  in 
1776,  but  his  daughter,  Lucy,  remained  behind,  for  she  had  given  her  heart  to 
Henry  Knox,  the  handsome  young  book-seller  of  colonial  Boston,  the  trusted 
friend  whom  Washington  caressed  with  tears  when  parting  from  his  com 
rades  of  the  deathless  little  army  of '76. 

The  old  brigadier  fell  dead  of  apoplexy  at  the  feet  of  Governor  Pownall, 
while  in  the  act  of  pointing  out  to  him  the  boundary  of  his  lands.  Mrs. 
Knox,  the  artillerist's  wife,  inherited  a  portion  of  the  Waldo  patent,  and  her 


Williamson's  "History  of  Maine.' 


62 


THE   NEW  ENGLAND   COAST. 


husband,  after  the  Revolution,  acquired  the  residue  by  purchase.  Here  his 
troubles  began ;  but  I  can  not  enter  upon  them.  He  built  an  elegant  mansion 
at  Thomaston,  which  he  called  Montpelier.1  The  house  has  been  demolished 
by  the  demands  of  the  railway,  for  which  one  of  its  outbuildings  no\y  serves 
as  a  station. 

General  Knox  involved  in  his  personal  difficulties  his  old  comrade,  General 

Lincoln,  though  not  quite  so  badly  as 
Mr.  Jefferson  would  make  it  appear 
in  his  letter  to  Mr.  Madison,  in  which 
he  says,  "He  took  in  General  Lin 
coln  for  one  hundred  and  fifty  thou 
sand  dollars,  which  breaks  him."  The 
same  writer  has  also  recorded  his 
opinion  that  Knox  was  a  fool;  but 
the  resentments  of  Mr.  Jefferson  are 
known  to  have  outrun  his  under 
standing.  Through  the  embarrass 
ments  incurred  by  his  friendship, 
General  Lincoln  became  interested 
in  the  Waldo  patent. 

Lincoln  was  about  five  feet  nine, 
so  extremely  corpulent  as  to  seem 
much  shorter  than  he  really  was.  He  wore  his  hair  unpowdered,  combed 
back  from  his  forehead,  and  gathered  in  a  long  cue.  He  had  a  full,  round 
face,  light  complexion,  and  blue  eyes.  His  dress  was  usually  a  blue  coat,  and 
buff  small-clothes.  An  enormous  cocked  hat,  as  indispensable  to  an  old  of 
ficer  of  the  Revolution  as  to  the  Little  Corporal,  or  as  the  capita]  to  the  Corin 
thian  column,  completed  his  attire.  He  had  been  wounded  in  the  leg  in  the 
battles  with  Burgoyne,  and  always  wore  boots  to  conceal  the  deformity,  as 
Knox  concealed  his  mutilated  hand  in  a  handkerchief. 

This  old  soldier,  Lincoln,  who  had  passed  very  creditably  through  the 
Revolution,  was,  like  the  fat  boy  in  "Pickwick,"  afflicted  with  somnolency. 
In  the  old  Hingham  church,  in  conversation  at  table,  and  it  is  affirmed  also 
while  driving  himself  in  a  chaise,  he  would  fall  sound  asleep.  During  his 
campaign  against  Shays  and  the  Massachusetts  insurgents  of  1786,  he  snored 
and  dictated  between  sentences.  He  considered  this  an  infirmity,  and  his 
friends  never  ventured  to  speak  to  him  of  it. 

Another  charming  picture  is  the  approach  to  the  Camden  Hills.  I  saw 
their  summits  peering  above  fog -drifts,  flung  like  scarfs  of  gossamer  across 
their  breasts.  Heavier  masses  sailed  along  the  valleys,  presenting  a  series 
of  ever -shifting,  ever -dissolving  views,  dim  and  mysterious,  with  transient 


GENERAL   BENJAMIN   LINCOLN. 


1  Jefferson  had  his  Monticello,  Washington  his  Mount  Vernon. 


CASTINE.  63 

glimpses  of  church-spires  and  white  cottages,  or  of  the  tops  of  trees  curiously 
skirting  a  fog -bank.  Sometimes  you  caught  the  warm  color  of  the  new- 
mown  hill-sides,  or  the  outlines  of  nearer  and  greener  swells.  These  hills  are 
a  noted  landmark  for  seamen,  and  the  last  object  visible  at  sea  in  leaving  the 
Penobscot.  The  highest  of  the  Megunticook  peaks  rises  more  than  fourteen 
thousand  feet,  commanding  an  unsurpassed  view  of  the  bay. 

After  touching  at  Camden,  the  steamer  continued  her  voyage.  The  ge 
nial  warmth  of  the  sun,  with  the  beauty  of  the  panorama  unrolled  before 
them,  had  brought  the  passengers  to  the  deck  to  gaze  and  admire.  I  chanced 
on  one  family  group  making  a  lunch  off  a  dry -salted  fish  and  crackers,  the 
females  eating  with  good  appetites.  Near  by  was  a  German,  breakfasting  on 
a  hard-boiled  egg  and  a  thick  slice  of  black  bread.  My  own  compatriots  pre 
ferred  the  most  indigestible  of  pies  and  tarts,  with  pea-nuts  d  discretion.  Rel 
ics  of  these  repasts  were  scattered  about  the  decks.  The  good-humor  and 
jollity  that  had  returned  with  a  few  rays  of  sunshine  led  me  to  think  on  the 
depression  caused  by  the  long  nights  of  an  Arctic  winter,  as  related  by  Frank 
lin,  Parry,  Kane,  and  Hays.  A  greeting  to  the  sun  !  May  he  never  cease  to 
shine  where  I  walk  or  lie ! 

Driving  her  sharp  prow  onward,  the  boat  soon  entered  Belfast  Bay.  Many 
vessels,  some  of  them 
fully  rigged  for  sea, 
were  on  the  stocks 
in  the  ship -yards  of 
Belfast.  The  Duke 

of  Rochefoucauld  Li-  mUmM^^MM 

ancourt,  during  his 
visit  in  1797,  noticed 
that  some  houses  were 
painted.  The  town 

then  contained  the  only  church  in  the  Waldo  patent.  As  might  be  inferred, 
the  name  is  from  Belfast,  Ireland  I1 

The  bay  begins  to  contract  above  Camden,  bringing  its  shores  within  the 
meaning  of  a  noble  river.  Indeed,  as  far  as  I  ascended  it,  the  Penobscot  will 
not  lose  by  comparison  with  the  Hudson.  The  river  is  considered  to  begin 
at  Fort  Point,  the  site  of  Governor  Pownall's  fort.  Above  the  flow  of  tide 
water  its  volume  decreases,  for  the  Penobscot  does  not  drain  an  extensive 
region  like  the  St.  Lawrence,  nor  has  it  such  a  reservoir  at  its  source  as  the 
Kennebec.  At  Orphan  Island  the  river  divides  into  two  channels,  making 


1  Its  Indian  name  was  Passageewakeag — "  the  place  of  sights,  or  ghosts."  It  contained  origi 
nally  one  thousand  acres,  which  the  settlers  bought  of  the  heirs  of  Brigadier  Waldo  at  two  shillings 
the  acre.  Belfast  was  the  first  incorporated  town  on  the  Penobscot.  It  suffered  severely  in  the 
Revolution  from  the  British  garrison  of  Castine. 


64  THE  NEW  ENGLAND  COAST. 

a  narrow  pass  of  extreme  beauty  and  picturesqueness  between  the  island  and 
the  western  shore.  Nowhere  else,  except  in  the  Vineyard  Sound,  have  I  seen 
such  a  movement  of  shipping  as  here.  A  fleet  of  coasters  were  standing  wing 
and  wing  through  the  Narrows.  Tow-boats,  dragging  as  many  as  a  dozen 
heavy-laden  lumbermen  outward-bound,  came  puffing  down  the  stream.  As 
they  entered  the  broad  reach  near  Fort  Point,  one  vessel  after  another  hoist 
ed  sail  and  dashed  down  the  bay.  The  Narrows  are  commanded  by  Fort 
Knox,  opposite  Bucksport.1 

In  coming  out  of  Belfast  we  approached  Brigadier's  Island,  from  which 
the  forest  had  wholly  disappeared.  General  Knox,  whose  patent  covered  all 
islands  within  three  miles  of  the  shore,  offered  three  thousand  dollars  to  the 
seven  farmers  who  then  occupied  it,  in  land  and  ready  money,  to  relinquish 
their  possession.  Vessels  were  formerly  built  on  the  island,  and  it  was  fa 
mous  for  its  plentiful  supplies  of  salmon.  In  old  times  a  family  usually  took 
from  ten  to  sixty  barrels  in  a  season,  which  brought  in  market  eight  dollars 
the  barrel.  The  fish  were  speared  or  taken  in  nets.  Owners  of  jutting 
points  made  great  captures. 

The  shores  of  the  river  are  seen  fringed  with  weirs.  Salmon,  shad,  ale- 
wives,  and  smelts  are  taken  in  proper  season,  the  crops  of  the  sea  succeeding 
each  other  with  the  same  certainty  as  those  of  the  land.  Before  the  begin 
ning  of  the  century  salmon  had  ceased  to  be  numerous.  Their  scarcity  was 
imputed  to  the  Penobscot  Indians,  who  destroyed  them  by  fishing  every  day 
in  the  year,  including  Sundays,  This  king  among  fishes  formerly  frequented 
the  Kennebec,  the  Merrimac,  and  were  even  taken  in  Ipswich  River,  and  the 
small  streams  flowing  into  Massachusetts  Bay» 

From  Belfast  I  crossed  the  bay  by  Islesboro  to  Castine.  I  confess  I  look 
ed  upon  this  famous  peninsula,  crowned  with  a  fortress,  furrowed  with  the  in- 
trenchments  of  forgotten  wars,  deserted  by  a  commerce  once  considerable,  lit 
tle  frequented  by  the  present  generation,  with  an  interest  hardly  inferior  to 
that  stimulated  by  the  associations  of  any  spot  of  ground  in  New  England. 

The  peninsula  of  Castine  presents  to  view  two  eminences  with  regu 
lar  outlines,  of  which  the  westernmost  is  the  most  commanding.  Both  are 
smoothly  rounded,  and  have  steep  though  not  difficult  ascents.  The  present 
town  is  built  along  the  base  and  climbs  the  declivity  of  the  eastern  hill,  its 
principal  street  conducting  from  the  water  straight  up  to  its  crest,  surmount 
ed  by  the  still  solid  ramparts  of  Fort  George.  The  long  occupation  of  the 
peninsula  has  nearly  denuded  it  of  trees.  Its  external  aspects  belong  rather 
to  the  milder  types  of  inland  scenery  than  to  the  rugged  grandeur  of  the  near 
sea-coast. 

Passing  by  a  bold  promontory,  on  which  the  light-tower  stands,  the  tide 

1  In  1797  there  were  twenty  vessels  owned  in  Fenobscot  River,  two  of  which  were  in  Euro 
pean  trade. 


CASTINE.  65 

carries  you  swiftly  through  the  Narrows  to  the  anchorage  before  the  town. 
Ships  of  any  class  may  be  carried  into  Castine,  while  its  adjacent  waters 
would  furnish  snug  harbors  for  fleets.  You  have  seen,  as  you  glided  by 
the  shores,  traces,  more  or  less  distinct,  of  the  sovereignty  of  Louis  XIV.,  of 
George  III.,  and  of  the  republic  of  the  United  States.  Puritans  and  Jesuits, 
Huguenots  and  Papists,  kings  and  commons,  have  all  schemed  and  striven  for 
the  possession  of  this  little  corner  of  land.  Richelieu,  Mazarin,  and  Colbert 
have  plotted  for  it ;  Thurloe,  Clarendon,  and  Bolingbroke  have  counter-plot 
ted.  It  has  been  fought  over  no  end  of  times,  conquered  and  reconquered, 
and  is  now  of  no  more  political  consequence  than  the  distant  peak  of  Ka- 
tahdin. 

There  is  very  little  appearance  of  business  about  Castine.  It  is  delight 
fully  lethargic.  Few  old  houses  of  earlier  date  than  the  Revolution  remain 
to  give  the  place  a  character  of  antiquity  conformable  with  its  history.  Nev 
ertheless,  there  are  pleasant  mansions,  and  cool,  well-shaded  by-ways,  quiet 
and  still,  in  which  the  echo  of  your  own  footfall  is  the  only  audible  sound. 
The  peninsula,  which  the  inhabitants  call  the  "  Neck,"  in  distinction  from  the 
larger  fraction  of  the  town,  is  of  small  extent.  You  may  ramble  all  over  it  in 
an  afternoon.1 

If  it  is  a  good  maxim  to  sleep  on  a  weighty  matter,  so  it  is  well  to  dine 
before  forming  a  judgment  of  a  place  you  are  visiting  for  the  first  time. 
Having  broken  bread  and  tasted  salt,  you  believe  yourself  to  have  acquired 
some  of  the  rights  of  citizenship ;  and  if  you  have  dined  well,  are  not  indis 
posed  to  regard  all  you  may  see  with  a  genial  and  not  too  critical  an  eye. 
Upon  this  conviction  I  acted. 

At  the  tavern,  the  speech  of  the  girl  who  waited  on  the  table  was  impeded 
by  the  gum  she  was  chewing.  While  she  was  repeating  the  carte,  the  only 
words  I  was  able  to  distinguish  were,  "  Raw  fish  and  clams."  As  I  am  not 
partial  to  either,  I  admit  I  was  a  little  disconcerted,  until  a  young  man  at  my 
elbow  interpreted,  sotto  voce,  the  jai'gon  into  "Corned  fish  and  roast  lamb." 
At  intervals  in  the  repast,  the  waiting -girl  would  run  into  the  parlor  and 
beat  the  keys  of  the  piano,  until  recalled  by  energetic  pounding  upon  the 
table  with  the  haft  of  a  knife.  Below  stairs  I  was  present  at  a  friendly  al 
tercation  between  the  landlord  and  maid  of  all  work,  as  to  whether  the  towel 
tor  common  use  had  been  hanging  a  week  or  only  six  days.  But  "  travelers," 
Bays  Touchstone,  "must  be  content;"  and  he  was  no  fool  though  he  wore 
motley. 

I  ascended  the  hill  above  the  town  on  which  the  Normal  School  is  situ 
ated,  and  in  a  few  moments  stood  on  the  parapet  of  Fort  George.  And  per 
haps  in  no  part  of  New  England  can  a  more  beautiful  and  extensive  view  be 
had  with  so  little  trouble.  It  was  simply  enchanting.  Such  a  combination 

1  The  upper  and  larger  part  is  called  North  Castine. 
5 


66  THE  NEW  ENGLAND   COAST. 

of  land  and  water  is  seldom  embraced  within  a  single  coup  d^oeil.  The  vis 
ion  is  bounded  by  those  portals  of  the  bay,  the  Camden  range  on  the  south 
west,  and  the  heights  of  Mount  Desert  in  the  east.  A  little  north  of  east  is 
the  solitary  Blue  Hill,  with  the  windings  and  broad  reaches  of  water  by  which 
Castine  proper  is  nearly  isolated  from  the  main-land.  Turning  still  northward, 
and  now  with  your  back  to  the  town,  you  perceive  Old  Fort  Point,  where,  in 
1759,  Governor  Pownall  built  a  work  to  command  the  entrance  to  the  river. 
Farther  to  the  westward  is  Brigadier's  Island,  and  the  bay  expanding  three 
leagues  over  to  Belfast. 


wm^v*,/, 

VIEW   FROM   FORT   GEORGE. 


Fort  George,  a  square,  bastioned  work,  is  the  best  preserved  earth-work  of 
its  years  in  New  England.  A  few  hours  would  put  it  in  a  very  tolerable  con 
dition  of  defense.  The  moat,  excavated  down  to  the  solid  rock,  is  intact;  the 
esplanade  hardly  broken  in  outline.  The  position  of  the  barracks,  magazine, 
and  guard-house  may  be  easily  traced  on  the  parade,  though  no  buildings 
now  remain  inside  the  fortress.  The  approach  on  three  sides  is  by  a  steep 
ascent;  especially  is  this  the  case  on  the  side  of  the  town.  Each  bastion  was 
pierced  with  four  embrasures.  The  position  was  of  great  strength,  and  would 
have  been  an  ugly  place  to  carry  by  escalade.  A  matter  of  a  few  hours  once 
determined  the  ownership  of  Castine  for  England  or  the  Colonies  in  arms. 

Now  let  us  take  a  walk  over  to  the  more  elevated  summit  west  of  Fort 
George.  Here  are  also  evidences  of  military  occupation  in  fast-perishing  em 
bankments  and  heaps  of  beach  pebbles.  What  are  left  of  the  lines  look  over 
toward  the.  English  fort  and  the  cove  between  it  and  the  main-land.  A 
broad,  level  plateau  of  greensward  extends  between  the  two  summits,  over 
which  neither  you  nor  I  would  have  liked  to  walk  in  the  teeth  of  rattling 
volleys  of  musketry.  Yet  such  things  have  been  on  this  very  hill-top. 

The  story  of  these  fortifications  is  drawn  from  one  of  the  most  disgraceful 
chapters  of  the  Revolutionary  war.  It  is  of  a  well- conceived  enterprise 
brought  to  a  disastrous  issue  through  incapacity,  discord,  and  blundering. 
There  are  no  longer  susceptibilities  to  be  wounded  by  the  relation,  though 
for  many  years  after  the  event  it  was  seldom  spoken  of  save  with  min 
gled  shame  and  indignation.  Little  enough  is  said  of  it  in  the  newspapers 
of  the  time,  for  it  was  a  terrible  blow  to  Massachusetts  pride,  and  struck 
home. 


CASTINE. 


67 


In  June,  1779,  Colonel  Francis  M'Lean  was  sent  from  Halifax  with  nine 
hundred   men  to  seize   and  fortify  the  peninsula,  then  generally  known  as 
Penobscot.1      He    landed 
on  the  12th  of  June,  and 
with  the  energy  and  de 
cision  of  a  good  soldier 
began  the  work  of  estab 
lishing  himself  firmly  in 
his  position. 

In  the  British  ranks 
was  one  notable  combat 
ant,  Captain  John  Moore, 
of  the  Fifty-first  foot,  who 
fell  under  the  walls  of  Co- 
runna  while  commanding 
the  British  army  in  Spain. 
As  his  military  career  be 
gan  in  America,  I  may 
narrate  an  incident  illus 
trating  his  remarkable 
popularity  with  his  sol 
diers.  In  1799,at  Egmont- 
op-zee,the  Ninety-second 
fiercely  charged  a  French 
brigade.  A  terrific  melee  ensued,  in  which  the  French  were  forced  to  retreat. 
In  the  midst  of  the  combat  two  soldiers  of  the  Ninety-second  discovered  Gen 
eral  Moore  lying  on  his  face,  apparently  dead  ;  for  he  was  wounded  and  uncon 
scious.  "  Here  is  the  general ;  let  us  take  him  away,"  said  one  of  them,  and, 
suiting  the  action  to  the  word,  they  bore  him  to  the  rear.  The  general  offer 
ed  a  reward  of  twenty  pounds ;  but  could  never  discover  either  of  the  sol 
diers  who  had  aided  him.  Moore's  death  inspired  Wolfe's  admired  lines, 
pronounced  by  Lord  Byron  "  the  most  perfect  ode  in  the  language :" 

"Not  a  drum  was  heard,  not  a  funeral  note, 
As  his  corpse  to  the  rampart  we  hurried; 
Not  a  soldier  discharged  his  farewell  shot 
O'er  the  grave  where  our  hero  we  buried." 

"  Moore,"  said  Napoleon,  "  was  a  brave  soldier,  an  excellent  officer,  and  a 
man  of  talent.  He  made  a  few  mistakes,  inseparable,  perhaps,  from  the  diffi 
culties  with  which  he  was  surrounded."  Beino-  reminded  that  Moore  was  al- 


SIR  JOHN   MOORE. 


1  Castine  was  not  incorporated  under  its  present  name  until  1796. 
peninsula  was  Bagaduce,  or  Biguyduce. 


The  Indian  name  of  the 


68  THE  NEW  ENGLAND  COAST. 

ways  in  the  front  of  battle,  and  generally  unfortunate  enough  to  be  wounded, 
he  added,  "Ah  !  it  is  necessary  sometimes.  He  died  gloriously ;  he  died  like 
a  soldier." 

Great  alarm  was  produced  by  M'Lean's  bold  dash.  Immediate  applica 
tion  was  made  to  Massachusetts,  of  which  Maine  still  formed  a  part,  for  aid 

to  expel  the  invader. 
Hancock  was  then 
governor.  General 
Gates  commanded  the 
Eastern  Department, 
with  head-quarters  at 
Providence.  The  Mas 
sachusetts  rulers  put 
their  heads  together, 
and,  thinking  on  the 

brilliant  achievement  of  their  fathers  at  Louisburg  in  1745,  resolved  to  em 
ulate  it.  They  raised  a  large  land  and  naval  force  with  the  utmost  ex 
pedition,  laying  an  embargo  for  forty  days  in  order  to  man  their  fleet  with 
sailors.  General  Gates  was  neither  consulted  nor  applied  to  for  the  Con 
tinental  troops  under  his  orders.1 

The  Massachusetts  armament  appeared  offPenobscot  on  the  25th  of  July. 
The  army  was  commanded  by  Solomon  Lovell,  the  fleet  by  Captain  Salton- 
stall,  of  the  Warren,  a  fine  new  Continental  frigate  of  thirty-two  guns.  Peleg 
Wadsworth  was  second  in  command  to  Lovell ;  Paul  Revere,  whom  Longfel 
low  has  immortalized,  had  charge  of  the  artillery.  The  land  forces  did  not 
number  more  than  twelve  hundred  men,  but  might  be  augmented  to  fifteen 
hundred  or  more  with  marines  from  the  fleet.  These  troops  were  militia,  and 
had  only  once  paraded  together  under  arms.  The  flotilla  was  formidable  in 
appearance  and  in  the  number  of  guns  it  carried,  but  lacked  unity  and  dis 
cipline  quite  as  much  as  the  army.  Plenty  of  courage  and  plenty  of  means 
do  not  make  soldiers  or  win  battles. 

M'Lean  had  received  intelligence  of  the  sailing  of  the  Massachusetts  ar 
mada.  His  fort  was  not  yet  capable  of  defense.  Two  bastions  were  not  be 
gun  ;  the  two  remaining,  with  the  curtains,  had  not  been  raised  more  than 
four  or  five  feet,  and  he  had  not  a  single  gun  mounted.  Captain  Mowatt  of 
detestable  memory,2  with  three  British  vessels  of  small  force,  was  in  the  har 
bor.  He  took  a  position  to  prevent  a  landing  on  the  south  side  of  the  penin 
sula.  A  deep  trench  was  cut  across  the  isthmus  connecting  with  the  main 
land,  securing  that  passage.  No  landing  could  be  effected  except  beneath 
the  precipice,  two  hundred  feet  high,  on  the  west.  M'Lean  dispatched  a  mes 
senger  to  Halifax,  and  redoubled  his  efforts  to  strengthen  his  fort. 

1  Gordon,  vol.  iii.,  p.  304.  3  The  man  who  destroyed  Falmouth,  now  Portland. 


CASTINE. 


69 


*b 


On  the  third  day  after  their  arrival  the  Americana  succeeded  in  landing, 
and,  after  a  gallant  fight,  gained  the  heights.  This  action — an  augury,  it  would 
seem,  of  good  success  to  the  assailants,  for  the  enemy  had  every  advantage 
of  position  and  knowledge  of  the  ground — is  the  single  crumb  of  comfort  to 
be  drawn  from  the  annals  of  the  expedition.  Captain  Moore  was  in  this  af 
fair. 

Instead  of  pursuing  his  advantage,  General  Lovell  took  a  position  within 
seven  hundred  and  h'f. 
ty  yards  of  the  ene 
my's  works,  and  be 
gan  to  intrench.  There 
was  fatal  disagreement 
between  the  general 
and  Saltonstall.  The 
sum  of  the  matter  was 
that  Lovell,  fearing  to 
attack  with  his  pres 
ent  force,  sent  to  Bos 
ton  for  re  -  enforce 
ments.  Then  General  .fflgna^M^-ffi*i?a^i  Pli  i'i^&iteifejFs^- 
Gates  was  applied  to 
for  help.  Two  weeks 
passed  in  regular  ap 
proaches  on  Lovell's 
part,  and  in  exertions 
by  M'Lean  to  render  his  fort  impregnable.  At  the  end  of  this  time,  Sir 
George  Collier  arrived  from  New  York  with  a  fleet,  and  raised  the  siege. 
General  Lovell  says  the  army  under  his  orders  had  very  short  notice  of  the 
arrival  of  this  force,  by  reason  of  a  fog  that  prevented  its  being  seen  until  its 
near  approach.  The  land  forces  succeeded  in  gaining  the  western  shore  of 
the  river  at  various  points,  but  had  then  to  make  their  way  through  a  wilder 
ness  to  the  settlements  on  the  Kennebec.  The  fleet  of  Saltonstall  was  either 
destroyed  or  captured. 

It  was  not  long  after  the  complete  dispersion  of  the  ill-starred  Penobscot 
expedition  that  General  Peleg  Wadsworth  succeeded  in  entering  the  British 
fort  on  the  hill  at  Bagaduce.  He  had  more  difficulty  in  leaving  it. 

After  the  disbanding  of  his  militia,  the  general  made  his  quarters  at 
Thomaston,  where  he  lived  with  his  wife  in  apparent  security.  A  young  lady 
named  Fenno  and  a  guard  of  six  militia-men  completed  his  garrison.  Gen 
eral  Campbell,  commanding  at  Bagaduce,  was  well  informed  of  Wadsworth's 
defenseless  condition,  and  resolved  to  send  him  an  invitation  to  come  and  re 
side  in  the  fortress.  A  lieutenant  and  twenty-live  men  arrived  at  dead  of 
night  with  the  message  at  Wadsworth's  house.  The  sentinel  challenged  and 


FORT   GEOKGE. 


TO  THE  NEW  ENGLAND  COAST. 

fled.  General  Wadsworth-  defended  himself  with  Spartan  bravery.  Armed 
with  a  brace  of  pistols,  a  fusee,  and  a  blunderbuss,  he  fought  his  assailants 
away  from  his  windows  and  the  door,  through  which  they  had  followed  the 
retreating  sentinel.  In  his  shirt,  with  his  bayonet  only,  he  disdained  to  yield 
for  some  time  longer,  until  a  shot  disabled  his  left  arm.  Then,  with  five  or 
six  men  lying  wounded  around  him,  the  windows  shattered,  and  the  house  on 
fire,  Peleg  Wadsworth  was  able  to  say,  "I  surrender."  They  took  him,  ex 
hausted  with  his  exertions  and  benumbed  with  cold,  to  the  fort,  where  he  was 
kept  close  prisoner.  Some  time  after,  Major  Burton,  who  had  served  with  the 
general,  was  also  made  prisoner,  and  lodged  in  the  same  room  with  him. 
Wadsworth  applied  for  a  parole.  It  was  refused.  Governor  Hancock  sent 
a  cartel  with  an  offer  of  exchange.  It  was  denied.  One  day  he  was  visited 
by  Miss  Fenno,  who  in  five  words  gave  him  to  know  he  was  to  be  detained 
till  the  end  of  the  war.  Peleg  Wadsworth  then  resolved  to  escape. 

The  prisoners  were  confined  in  a  room  of  the  officers'  quarters,  the  win 
dow  grated,  the  door  provided  with  a  sash,  through  which  the  sentinel,  con 
stantly  on  duty  in  the  passage,  could  look  into  the  room  as  he  paced  on  his 
round.  At  either  end  of  this  passage  was  a  door,  opening  upon  the  parade 
of  the  fort,  at  which  other  sentinels  were  posted.  At  sunset  the  gates  were 
closed,  and  the  number  of  sentinels  on  the  parapet  increased.  A  picket  was 
also  stationed  at  the  narrow  isthmus  connecting  with  the  main-land. 

These  were  not  all  the  difficulties  in  their  way.  Supposing  them  able  to 
pass  the  sentinels  in  the  passage  and  at  the  outer  door  of  their  quarters,  they 
must  then  cross  the  open  space  and  ascend  the  wall  under  the  eye  of  the 
guards  posted  on  the  parapet.  Admitting  the  summit  of  the  rampart  gained, 
the  exterior  wall  was  defended  with  strong  pickets  driven  obliquely  into  the 
earthen  wall  of  the  fort.  From  this  point  was  a  sheer  descent  of  twenty  feet 
to  the  bottom  of  the  ditch.  Arrived  here,  the  fugitives  must  ascend  the  coun 
terscarp,  and  cross  the  chevaux-de-frise  with  which  it  was  furnished.  They 
were  then  without  the  fortress,  with  no  possible  means  of  gaining  their  free 
dom  except  by  water.  To  elude  the  picket  at  the  Neck  was  not  to  be 
thought  of. 

The  prisoners'  room  was  ceiled  with  pine  boards.  Upon  some  pretext 
they  procured  a  gimlet  of  a  servant,  with  which  they  perforated  a  board  so 
as  to  make  ap  aperture  sufficiently  large  to  admit  the  body  of  a  man.  The 
interstices  were  cut  through  with  a  penknife,  leaving  the  corners  intact  until 
the  moment  for  action  should  arrive.  They  then  filled  the  holes  with  bread, 
and  carefully  removed  the  dust  from  the  floor.  This  work  had  to  be  exe 
cuted  while  the  sentinel  traversed  a  distance  equal  to  twice  the  depth  of  their 
own  room.  The  prisoners  paced  their  floor,  keeping  step  with  the  sentry; 
and  as  soon  as  he  had  passed  by,  Burton,  who  was  the  taller,  and  could  reach 
the  ceiling,  commenced  work,  while  Wadsworth  walked  on.  On  the  approach 
of  the  soldier  Burton  quickly  rejoined  his  companion.  Three  weeks  were  re- 


CASTINE.  7 1 

quired  to  execute  this  task.  Each  was  provided -with  a  blanket  and  a  strong 
staff,  sharpened  at  the  end.  For  food  they  kept  their  crusts  and  dried  bits  of 
their  meat.  They  waited  until  one  night  when  a  violent  thunder-storm  swept 
over  the  peninsula.  It  became  intensely  dark.  The  rain  fell  in  torrents  upon 
the  roof  of  the  barracks.  The  moment  for  action  had  come. 

The  prisoners  undressed  themselves  as  usual,  and  went  to  bed,  observed 
by  the  sentinel.  They  then  extinguished  their  candle,  and  quickly  arose. 
Their  plan  was  to  gain  the  vacant  space  above  their  room,  creeping  along 
the  joists  until  they  reached  the  passage  next  beyond,  which  they  knew  to 
be  unguarded.  Thence  they  were  to  make  their  way  to  the  north  bastion, 
acting  as  circumstances  might  determine. 

Burton  was  the  first  to  pass  through  the  opening.  He  had  advanced  but 
a  little  way  before  he  encountered  a  flock  of  fowls,  whose  roost  he  had  in 
vaded.  Wads  worth  listened  with  breathless  anxiety  to  the  cackling  that 
apprised  him  for  the  first  time  of  this  new  danger.  At  length  it  ceased  with 
out  having  attracted  the  attention  of  the  guards,  and  the  general  with  diffi 
culty  ascended  in  his  turn.  He  passed  over  the  distance  to  the  gallery  un 
noticed,  and  gained  the  outside  by  the  door  that  Burton  had  left  open.  Feel 
ing  his  way  along  the  wall  of  the  barracks  to  the  western  side,  he  made  a 
bold  push  for  the  embankment,  gaining  the  rampart  by  an  oblique  path.  At 
this  moment  the  door  of  the  guard-house  was  flung  open,  and  a  voice  ex 
claimed,  "  Relief,  turn  out !"  Fortunately  the  guard  passed  without  seeing  the 
fugitive.  He  reached  the  bastion  agreed  upon  as  a  rendezvous,  but  Burton 
was  not  there.  No  time  was  to  be  lost.  Securing  his  blanket  to  a  picket, 
he  lowered  himself  as  far  as  it  would  permit,  and  dropped  without  accident 
into  the  ditch.  From  here  he  passed  softly  out  by  the  water- course,  and 
stood  in  the  open  air  without  the  fort.  It  being  low  tide,  the  general  waded 
the  cove  to  the  main-land,  and  made  the  best  of  his  way  up  the  river.  In  the 
morning  he  was  rejoined  by  his  companion,  and  both,  after  exertions  that  ex 
acted  all  their  fortitude,  gained  the  opposite  shore  of  the  Penobscot  in  safety. 
Their  evasion  is  like  a  romance  of  the  Bastile  in  the  day  of  Richelieu. 

The  gallant  old  general  removed  to  Falmouth,  now  Portland.  One  of  his 
sons,  an  Intrepid  spirit,  was  killed  by  the  explosion  of  a  fire-ship  before  Trip 
oli,  in  which  he  was  a  volunteer.  A  daughter  married  Hon.  Stephen  Long 
fellow,  of  Portland,  father  of  the  poet. 

When  the  corps  d'armee  of  Rochambeau  was  at  Newport,  the  French 
general  conceived  the  idea  of  sending  an  expedition  to  recapture  Penob 
scot,  and  solicited  the  consent  of  Washington  to  do  so.  The  French  officers 
much  preferred  acting  on  an  independent  line,  but  the  proposal  was  wisely 
negatived  by  the  commander  in  chief.  The  man  to  whom  Rochambeau  ex 
pected  to  intrust  the  naval  operations  was  La  Peyrouse,  the  distinguished 
but  ill-fated  navigator. 

Other  earth-works  besides  those  already  mentioned  may  be  traced.     Two 


72  THE  NEW  ENGLAND  COAST. 

small  batteries  that  guarded  the  approaches  on  the  side  of  the  cove  are  dis 
tinct.  Some  of  these  works  were  renovated  during  the  reoccupation  of  Cas- 
tine  by  the  British  in  1812.  Others  seen  on  the  shores  of  the  harbor  are  of 
more  recent  date. 

A  speaking  reminder  of  by -gone  strife  is  an  old  cannon,  lying  on  the 
greensward  under  the  walls  of  Fort  George,  of  whose  grim  muzzle  school 
girls  were  wont  to  make  a  post-office.  There  was  poetry  in  the  conceit. 
Never  before  had  it  been  so  delicately  charged,  though  I  have  known  a  per 
fumed  billet-doux  do  more  damage  than  this  fellow,  double-shotted  and  at 
point-blank,  might  effect. 


RUINS   OF   FORT   PENTAGOET,  CASTINE. 


CHAPTER  V. 

CASTINE — continued. 

"Baron  Castine  of  St.  Castine 
Has  left  his  chateau  in  the  Pyrenees, 
And  sailed  across  the  western  seas." 

LONGFELLOW. 

T  CONFESS  I  would  rather  stand  in  presence  of  the  Pyramids,  or  walk  in 
-  the  streets  of  buried  Pompeii,  than  assist  at  the  unwrapping  of  many  flesh- 
less  bodies.  No  other  medium  than  the  material  eye  can  grasp  a  fact  with 
the  same  distinctness.  It  becomes  rooted,  and  you  may  hang  your  legends  or 
traditions  on  its  branches.  It  is  true  there  is  a  class  who  journey  from  Dan 
to  Beersheba,  finding  all  barren  ;  but  the  average  American,  though  far  from 
unappreciative,  too  often  makes  a  business  of  his  recreation,  and  devours  in 
an  hour  what  might  be  viewed  with  advantage  in  a  week  or  a  month. 

After  this  frank  declaration,  the  reader  will  not  expect  me  to  hurry  him 
through  a  place  that  contains  so  much  of  the  crust  of  antiquity  as  Castine, 
and  is  linked  in  with  the  Old-world  chronicles  of  a  period  of  surpassing  in 
terest,  both  in  history  and  romance. 

Very  little  of  the  fort  of  the  Baron  Castin  and  his  predecessors,  yet 
enough  to  reward  the  research  of  the  stranger,  is  to  be  seen  on  the  margin  of 
the  shore  of  the  harbor,  less  than  half  a  mile  from  the  central  portion  of  the 
town.  The  grass-grown  ramparts  have  sunk  too  low  to  be  distinguished  from 
the  water  in  passing,  but  are  evident  to  a  person  standing  on  the  ground  it 
self.  Not  many  years  will  elapse  before  these  indistinct  traces  are  wholly 
obliterated.1 

The  bank  here  is  not  much  elevated  above  high-water  mark,  while  at  the 
wharves  it  rises  to  a  higher  level,  and  is  ascended  by  stairs.  The  old  fort  was 


1  In  1759  Governor  Pownall  took  possession  of  the  peninsula  of  Castine,  and  hoisted  the  En 
glish  flag  on  the  fort.    He  found  the  settlement  deserted  and  in  ruins. — Gov.  POWNALL'S  Journal. 


74  THE  NEW  ENGLAND  COAST. 

placed  near  the  narrowest  part  of  the  harbor,  with  a  firm  pebbly  beach  before 
it.  Small  boats  may  land  directly  under  the  walls  of  the  work  at  high  tide, 
or  lie  protected  by  the  curvature  of  the  shore  from  the  heavy  seas  rolling  in 
from  the  outer  harbor.  The  high  hills  over  which  we  were  rambling  in  the 
preceding  chapter  ward  off  the  northern  winds. 

A  portion  of  the  ground  covered  by  old  Fort  Pentagoet  is  now  occupied 
by  buildings,  a  barn  standing  within  the  circumvallation,  and  the  dwelling 
of  Mr.  Webb  between  the  shore  and  the  road.  A  little  stream  of  sweet  water 
trickles  along  the  south-west  face  of  the  work,  and  then  loses  itself  among 
the  pebbles  of  the  beach. 

Fort  Pentagoet,  at  its  rendition  by  Sir  Thomas  Temple,  in  1670,  after  the 
treaty  of  Breda,  was  a  rectangular  work  with  four  bastions.  The  height  of 
the  curtains  within  was  eight  feet.  On  entering  the  fort  a  corps  de  garde, 
twelve  paces  long  and  six  broad,  stood  at  the  left,  with  a  logis,  or  quarter,  on 
the  opposite  side  of  the  entrance.  On  the  left  side  were  also  two  store-houses, 
each  thirty-six  paces  long  by  twelve  in  breadth,  covered  with  shingles.  Un 
derneath  the  store-houses  was  a  cellar  of  about  half  their  extent,  in  which  a 
well  had  been  sunk.  Above  the  entrance  was  a  turret,  built  of  timber,  plas 
tered  with  clay,  and  furnished  with  a  bell.  At  the  right  hand  was  a  barrack 
of  the  same  length  and  breadth  as  the  store-houses,  and  built  of  stone.  Sixty 
paces  from  the  fort  was  a  cabin  of  planks,  in  which  the  cattle  were  housed ; 
and  at  some  distance  farther  was  a  garden  in  good  condition,  having  fruit- 
trees.  There  were  mounted  on  the  ramparts  six  six-pounder  and  two  four- 
pounder  iron  cannon,  with  two  culverins.  Six  other  pieces  were  lying,  useless 
and  dismounted,  on  the  parapet.  Overlooking  the  sea  and  detached  from  the 
fort  was  a  platform,  with  two  iron  eight-pounders  in  position. 

The  occupant  of  the  nearest  house  told  me  an  oven  constructed  of  flat 
slate-stones  Avas  discovered  in  an  angle  of  the  work;  also  that  shot  had  been 
picked  up  on  the  beach,  and  a  tomahawk  and  stone  pipe  taken  from  the  well. 
The  whole  ground  has  been  explored  with  the  divining-rod,  as  well  within 
as  without  the  fort,  for  treasure-trove ;  though  little  or  nothing  rewarded 
the  search,  except  the  discovery  of  a  subterranean  passage  opening  at  the 
shore. 

These  examinations  were  no  doubt  whetted  by  an  extraordinary  piece  of 
good  luck  that  befell  fanner  Stephen  Grindle,  while  hauling  wood  from  a 
rocky  hill-side  on  the  point  at  the  second  narrows  of  Bagaduce  River,  about 
six  miles  from  Castine  peninsula.  In  1840  this  worthy  husbandman  saw  a  shin 
ing  object  lying  in  the  track  of  his  oxen.  He  stooped  and  picked  up  a  silver 
coin,  as  bright  as  if  struck  within  a  twelvemonth.  On  looking  at  the  date,  he 
found  it  to  be  two  hundred  years  old.  Farther  search  was  rewarded  by  the 
discovery  of  several  other  pieces.  A  fall  of  snow  interrupted  the  farmer's  in 
vestigations  until  the  next  spring,  when,  in  or  near  an  old  trail  leading  across 
the  point,  frequented  by  the  Indians  from  immemorial  time,  some  seven  hun- 


CASTINE.  75 

dred  coins  of  the  nominal  value  of  four  hundred  dollars  were  unearthed  near 
the  surface.     All  the  pieces  were  of  silver. 

The  honest  farmer  kept  his  own  counsel,  using  his  treasure  from  time  to 
time  to  pay  his  store  bills  in  the  town,  dollar 
for  dollar,  accounting  one  of  Master  'Hull's 
pine-tree  shillings  at  a  shilling.  The  store 
keepers  readily  accepted  the  exchange  at 
the  farmer's  valuation ;  but  the  possession 
of  such  a  priceless  collection  was  soon  betray 
ed  by  its  circulation  abroad.  PINE-TREE  SHILLING. 

Dr.  Joseph  L.  Stevens,  the  esteemed  antiquary  of  Castine,  of  whom  I  had 
these  particulars,  exhibited  to  me  a  number  of  the  coins.  They  would  have 
made  a  numismatist's  mouth  water.  French  ecus,  Portuguese  and  Spanish 
pieces-of-eight,  Bremen  dollars,  piasters,  and  cob-money,1  clipped  and  battered, 
with  illegible  dates,  but  melodious  ring,  chinked  in  better  fellowship  than  the 
sovereigns  whose  effigies  they  bore  had  lived  in.  A  single  gold  coin,  the  only 
one  found  in  the  neighborhood  of  Castine,  was  picked  up  on  the  beach  oppo 
site  the  fort.2 

The  theory  of  the  presence  of  so  large  a  sum  on  the  spot  where  it  was 
found  is  that  when  Castin  was  driven  from  the  fort  by  Colonel  Church,  in 
1704,  these  coins  were  left  by  some  of  his  party  in  their  retreat,  where  they 
remained  undiscovered  for  more  than  a  century  and  a  quarter.  Or  it  may 
have  been  the  hoard  of  one  of  the  two  countrymen  of  Castin,  who,  he  says, 
were  living  two  miles  from  him  in  1687. 

The  detail  of  old  Fort  Pentagoet  just  given  is  believed  to  describe  the 
place  as  it  had  existed  since  1654,  when  captured  by  the  colony  forces  of  Mas 
sachusetts.  General  Sedgwick  then  spoke  of  it  as  "a  small  fort,  yet  very 
strong,  and  a  very  well  composed  peese,  with  eight  peese  of  ordnance,  one 


1  "The  clumsy,  shapeless  coinage,  both  of  gold  and  silver,  called  in  Mexico  mdquina  de  papa, 
loteycruz  ("windmill  and  cross-money"),  and  in  this  country  by  the  briefer  appellation  of  "cobs." 
These  were  of  the  lawful  standards,  or  nearly  so,  but  scarcely  deserved  the  name  of  coin,  being 
rather  lumps  of  bullion  flattened  and  impressed  by  a  hammer,  the  edge  presenting  every  variety  of 
form  except  that  of  a  circle,  and  affording  ample  scope  for  the  practice  of  clipping:  notwithstand 
ing  they  are  generally  found,  even  to  this  day,  within  a  few  grains  of  lawful  weight.  They  are 
generally  about  a  century  old,  but  some  are  dated  as  late  as  1770.  They  are  distinguished  by  a 
large  cross,  of  which  the  four  arms  are  equal  in  length,  and  loaded  at  the  ends.  The  date  general 
ly  omits  the  thousandth  place;  so  that  736,  for  example,  is  to  be  read  1736.  The  letters  PLVS 
VLTRA  (plus  ultra)  are  crowded  in  without  attention  to  order.  These  coins  were  formerly 
brought  here  in  large  quantities  for  recoinage,  but  have  now  become  scarce." — WILLIAM  E.  Du- 
BOIS,  United  States  Mint. 

1  think  the  name  of  "cob"  was  applied  to  money  earlier  than  the  date  given  by  Mr.  Dubois. 
Its  derivation  is  uncertain,  but  was  probably  either  "lump,"  or  from  the  Welsh,  for  "thump,'1 
i.  e.,  struck  money. 

2  On  an  old  map  of  unknown  date  Castin's  houses  are  located  here. 


76  THE  NEW  ENGLAND  COAST. 

brass,  three  murtherers,  about  eighteen  barrels  of  powder,  and  eighteen  men 
in  garrison."1 

It  would  require  a  volume  to  set  forth  in  extenso  the  annals  of  these 
mounds,  scarce  lifted  above  the  surface  of  the  surrounding  plateau.  But  to 
arouse  the  reader's  curiosity  without  an  endeavor  to  gratify  it  were  indeed 
churlish.  I  submit,  therefore,  with  the  brevity,  and  I  hope  also  the  simplicity, 
that  should  characterize  the  historic  style,  the  essence  of  the  matter  as  it  has 
dropped  from  my  alembic. 

The  reader  is  referred  to  what  is  already  narrated  of  Norumbega  for  the 
earliest  knowledge  of  the  Penobscot  by  white  men.  The  first  vessel  that  as 
cended  the  river  was  probably  the  bark  of  Du  Guast,  Sieur  de  Monts,  in  the 
year  1604.  De  Poutrincourt  was  there  in  the  year  1606.2 

No  establishment  appears  to  have  been  begun  on  the  Bagaduce  peninsula 
until  our  colonists  of  New  Plymouth  fixed  upon  it  for  the  site  of  a  trading- 
post,  about  1629.3  Here  they  erected  a  house,  defended,  probably,  after  the 
fashion  of  the  time,  with  palisades,  loop-holed  for  musketry.  They  were  a 
long  way  from  home,  and  had  need  to  keep  a  wary  eye  abroad.  Governor 
Bradford  mentions  that  the  house  was  robbed  by  some  "Isle  of  Rhe  gentle 
men"  in  1632. 

The  Plymouth  people  kept  possession  until  1635,  when  they  were  dispos 
sessed  by  an  expedition  sent  from  La  Have,  in  Acadia,  commanded  by  the 
Chevalier  Charles  de  Men  on,  or,  as  he  is  usually  styled,  D'Aulnay  Charnisay. 
The  chevalier's  orders  from  Razilly,  who  had  then  the  general  command  in 
Canada,  were  to  expel  all  the  English  as  far  as  Pemaquid. 

Plymouth  Colony  endeavored  to  retake  the  place  by  force.  A  large  ship 
for  that  day,  the  Hope,  of  Ipswich,  England,  Girling  commander,  was  fitted 
out,  and  attacked  the  post  in  such  a  disorderly,  unskillful  manner  that  Gir 
ling  expended  his  ammunition  before  having  made  the  least  impression. 
Standish,  the  redoubtable,  was  there  in  a  small  bark,  fuming  at  the  incompe- 
tency  of  the  commander  of  the  Hope,  who  had  been  hired  to  do  the  job  for  so 
much  beaver  if  he  succeeded,  nothing  if  he  failed.  Standish,  with  the  beaver, 
returned  to  Plymouth,  after  sending  Girling  a  new  supply  of  powder  from 
Pemaquid ;  but  no  further  effort  is  known  to  have  been  made  to  reduce  the 
place. 

The  Pilgrims  then  turned  to  their  natural  allies,  the  Puritans  of  the  Bay ; 
but,  as  Rochefoucauld  cunningly  says,  there  is  something  in  the  misfortunes 

1  Sedgwick's  Letter,  Historical  Magazine,  July,  1873,  p.  38. 

2  Williamson  thinks  the  name  of  Cape  Rosier  a  d^tinct  reminder  of  Weymouth's  voyage. 

3  Though  Hutchinson  says  "about  1627,"  I  think  it  an  error,  as  Allerton,  the  promoter  of  the 
project,  was  in  England  in  that  year,  as  well  as  in  1626  and  1628,  as  agent  of  the  colony.    Nor  was 
the  proposal  brought  forward  until  Sherley  and  Hatherly,  two  of  the  adventurers,  wrote  to  Gov 
ernor  Bradford,  in  1629,  that  they  had  determined  upon  it  in  connection  with  Allerton,  and  in 
vited  Plymouth  to  join  with  them. 


CAST1NE.  77 

of  our  friends  that  does  not  displease  us.  They  got  smooth  speeches  in  plen 
ty,  but  no  help.  It  is  curious  to  observe  that  at  this  time  the  two  colonies 
combined  were  too  weak  to  raise  and  equip  a  hundred  soldiers  on  a  sudden 
call.  So  the  French  remained  in  possession  until  1654. 

An  attempt  was  made  by  Plymouth  Colony  to  liberate  their  men  cap 
tured  at  Penobscot.  Isaac  Allerton  was  sent  to  demand  them  of  La  Tour, 
who  in  haughty  terms  refused  to  deliver  them  up,  saying  all  the  country  from 
Cape  Sable  to  Cape  Cod  belonged  to  the  king,  his  master,  and  if  the  English 
persisted  in  trading  east  of  Pemaquid  he  would  capture  them. 

"Will  monseigneur  deign  to  show  me  his  commission?" 

The  chevalier  laid  his  hand  significantly  on  his  sword-hilt.  "  This,"  said 
he,  "is  my  commission." 

I  have  mentioned  three  Frenchmen:  Sir  Isaac  de  Razilly,  a  soldier  of  the 
monastic  order  of  Malta;  La  Tour,  a  heretic;  and  D'Aulnay,  a  zealous  papist. 

Kazilly's  commission  is  dated  at  St.  Germain  en  Laye,  May  10th,  1632. 
He  was  to  take  possession  of  Port  Royal,  so  named  by  De  Monts,  from  its 
glorious  harbor,  and  ceded  to  France  under  the  treaty  of  1629.  This  was  the 
year  after  the  taking  of  La  Rochelle ;  so  that  we  are  now  in  the  times  of 
the  great  cardinal  and  his  puissant  adversary,  Buckingham.  The  knight  of 
Malta  was  so  well  pleased  with  Acadia  that  he  craved  permission  of  the 
grand  master  to  remain  in  the  country.  He  was  recalled,  with  a  reminder 
of  the  subjection  exacted  by  that  semi-military,  semi-ecclesiastical  body  of  its 
members.  Hutchinson  says  he  died  soon  after  1635.  There  is  evidence  he 
was  alive  in  1636. 

In  1638  Louis  XIII.  addressed  the  following  letter  to  D'Aulnay :  "  You  are 
my  lieutenant-general  in  the  country  of  the  Etchemins,  from  the  middle  of 
the  main-land  of  Frenchman's  Bay  to  the  district  of  Canceaux.  Thus  you 
may  not  change  any  regulation  in  the  establishment  on  the  River  St.  John 
made  by  the  said  Sieur  De  la  Tour,  etc."1  Three  years  afterward  the  king 
sent  his  commands  to  La  Tour  to  return  to  France  immediately  ;  if  he  refused, 
D'Aulnay  was  ordered  to  seize  his  person. 

Whether  the  death  of  Louis,  and  also  of  his  Eminence,  at  this  time  divert 
ed  the  danger  with  which  La  Tour  was  threatened,  is  a  matter  of  conjecture. 
D'Aulnay,  however,  had  possessed  himself,  in  1643,  of  La  Tour's  fort,  and  the 
latter  was  a  suppliant  to  the  English  at  Boston  for  aid  to  displace  his  adver 
sary.  He  obtained  it,  and  recovered  his  own  again,  but  was  unable  to  eject 
D'Aulnay  from  Penobscot.  A  second  attempt,  also  unsuccessful,  was  made 
the  following  year.  The  treaty  between  Governor  Endicott  and  La  Tour  in 
this  year  was  afterward  ratified  by  the  United  Colonies. 

In  1645  D'Aulnay  \vas  in  France,  receiving  the  thanks  of  the  king  and 
queen-mother  for  his  zeal  in  preserving  Acadia  from  the  treasonable  designs 

1  "Archives  of  Massachusetts." 


78  THE  NEW  ENGLAND  COAST. 

of  La  Tour.  The  next  year  a  treaty  of  peace  was  concluded  at  Boston  be 
tween  the  English  and  D'Aulnay ;  and  in  1647,  the  king  granted  him  letters 
patent. of  lieutenant-general  from  the  St.  Lawrence  to  Acaclia.  He  died  May 
24th,  1650,  from  freezing,  while  out  in  the  bay  with  his  valet  in  a  canoe.  La 
Tour  finished  by  marrying  the  widow  of  D'Aulnay,  thus  composing,  and  for 
ever,  his  feud  with  the  husband.1 

For  some  years  quiet  reigned  in  the  peninsula,  or  until  1654,  when  an  ex 
pedition  was  fitted  out  by  Massachusetts  against  Stuyvesant  and  the  Dutch 
at  Manhattan.  Peace  having  been  concluded  before  it  was  in  readiness,  the 
Puritans,  with  true  thrift,  launched  their  armament  against  the  unsuspectT 
ing  Mounseers  of  Penobscot.  Although  peace  also  existed  between  Cromwell 
and  Louis,  the  expenditure  of  much  money  without  some  gain  was  not  to  be 
thought  of  in  the  Bay.  For  a  pretext,  they  had  always  the  old  grudge  of 
prior  right,  going  back  to  Elizabeth's  patent  of  1578  to  Sir  Humphrey  Gilbert. 

Robert  Sedgvvick  and  John  Leverett  were  two  as  marked  men  as  could 
be  found  in  New  England.  They  sailed  from  Nantasket  on  the  4th  of  July, 
1654,  with  three  ships,  a  ketch,  and  two  hundred  soldiers  of  Old  and  New 
England.  Port  Royal,  the  fort  on  .St.  John's  River,  and  Penobscot,  were  all 
captured.  Afterward  they  served  the  Protector  in  England.  Sedgwick  was 
chosen  by  Cromwell  to  command  his  insubordinate  and  starving  army  at  Ja 
maica,  and  died,  it  is  said,  of  a  broken  heart,  from  the  weight  of  responsibility 
imposed  on  him. 

Although  the  King  of  France  testified  great  displeasure  because  the  forts 
in  Acadia  were  not  restored  to  him,  Cromwell  continued  to  hold  them  fast, 
nor  were  they  given  up  until  after  the  treaty  of  Breda,  when  Pentagoet,  in 
1669-"70,  was  delivered  by  Sir  Thomas  Temple  to  M.  De  Grand  Fontaine, 
who,  in  1673,  turned  over  the  command  to  M.  De  Chambly. 

On  the  10th  of  August,  1674,  M.  De  Chambly  was  assaulted  by  a  buccaneer 
that  had  touched  at  Boston,  where  an  English  pilot,  as  M.  De  Frontenac  says, 
was  taken  on  board.  An  Englishman,  who  had  been  four  days  in  the  place 
in  disguise,  gave  the  pirates  every  assistance.2  They  landed  one  hundred 
and  ten  men,  and  fell  with  fury  on  the  little  garrison  of  thirty  badly  armed 
and  disaffected  Frenchmen.  After  sustaining  the  onset  for  an  hour,  M.  De 
Chambly  fell,  shot  through  the  body.  His  ensign  was  also  struck  down, 
when  the  fort  surrendered  at  discretion.  The  sea-robbers  pillaged  the  fort, 
carried  off  the  cannon,  and  conducted  the  Sieur  De  Chambly  to  Boston,  along 
with  M.  De  Marson,  whom  they  took  in  the  River  St.  John.  Chambly  was 
put  to  ransom  of  a  thousand  beaver-skins.  Colbert,  then  minister,  expressed 

1  Aglate  la  Tour,  granddaughter  of  the  chevalier,  sold  the  seigniory  of  Acadia  to  the  crown  for 
two  thousand  guineas. — DOUGLASS. 

2  Mr.  Shea  (Charlevoix)  says  this  was  John  Rhoade,  and  the  vessel  the  Flying  Horse,  Captain 
Jurriaen  Aernouts,  with  a  commission  from  the  Prince  of  Orange. 


CASTINE. 


his  surprise  to  Frontcnac  that  the  forts  of  Pentagoet  and  Gemisee  had  been 
taken  and  pillaged  by  a  freebooter.  No  rupture  then  existed  between  the 
crowns  of  England  and  France. 

Another  subject  of  Louis  le  Grand  now  raps  with  his  sword-hilt  for  admis 
sion  to  our  gallant  com 
pany  of  noble  French  gen 
tlemen  who  have  followed 
the  lead  of  De  Monts  into 
the  wilds  of  Acadia.  Bar 
on  La  Hontan,  writing  in 
1683,  says,  "The  Baron 
St.  Castin,  a  gentleman  of 
Oleron,  in  Bearne,  having 
lived  among  the  Abena- 
quis  after  the  savage  way 
for  above  twenty  years,  is 
so  much  respected  by  the 
savages  that  they  look 
upon  him.  as  their  tutelar 
god." 

Vincent,  Baron  St.  Cas 
tin,  came  to  America  with 
his  regiment  about  1665. 
He  was  ensign  in  the  reg 
iment  Carignan,  of  which 
Henry  de  Chapelas  was 
colonel.  Chambly  and 
Sorel,  who  were  his  com 
rades,  have  also  left  their 
names  impressed  on  the 
map  of  New  France.  The 
regiment  was  disbanded,  the  governor-general  allowing  each  officer  three  or 
four  leagues' extent  of  good  land,  with  as  much  depth  as  they  pleased.  The 
officers,  in  turn,  gave  their  soldiers  as  much  ground  as  they  wished  upon  pay 
ment  of  a  crown  per  arpent  by  way  of  fief.1  Chambly  we  have  seen  in  com 
mand  at  Pentagoet  in  1673.  Castin  appears  to  have  plunged  into  the  wilder 
ness,  making  his  abode  with  the  fierce  Abenaquis. 

The  young  Bearnese  soon  acquired  a  wonderful  ascendency  among  them. 
He  mastered  their  language,  and  received,  after  the  savage's  romantic  fash 
ion,  the  hand  of  a  princess  of  the  nation,  the  daughter  of  Madocawando,  the 
implacable  foe  of  the  English.  They  made  him  their  great  chief,  or  leader, 


COLBERT. 


Estates  are  still  conveyed  in  St.  Louis  by  the  arpent. 


80  THE  NEW  ENGLAND  COAST. 

and  at  his  summons  all  the  warriors  of  the  Abenaqtiis  gathered  around  him. 
Exercising  a  regal  power  in  his  forest  dominions,  he  no  doubt  felt  every  inch 
a  chieftain.  The  French  governors  courted  him ;  the  English  feared  and 
hated  him.  In  1696,  with  Iberville,  he  overran  their  stronghold  at  Pemaquid. 
He  fought  at  Port  Royal  in  1706,  and  again  in  1707,  receiving  a  wound  there. 
He  was,  says  M.  Denonville,  of  a  daring  and  enterprising  character,  thirsting 
for  distinction.  In  1702  he  proposed  a  descent  on  Boston,  to  be  made  in  win 
ter  by  a  competent  land  and  naval  force.  Magazines  were  to  be  formed  at 
Piscataqua  and  Marblehead. 

It  is  known  that  some  earlier  passages  of  Castin's  life  in  Acadia  were  not 
free  from  reproach.  Denonville,1  in  recommending  him  to  Louvois  as  the 
proper  person  to  succeed  M.  Perrot  at  Port  Royal  ("  si  M.  Perrot  degoutait 
cle  son  gouvernment"),  admits  he  had  been  addicted  in  the  past  to  riot  and 
debauchery ;  "  but,"  continues  the  viceroy,  "  I  am  assured  that  he  is  now 
quite  reformed,  and  has  very  proper  sentiments  on  the  subject."  Perrot,  jeal 
ous  of  Castin,  put  him  in  arrest  for  six  weeks  for  some  foolish  affair  among 
the  filles  of  Port  Royal. 

"For  man  is  fire  and  woman  is  tow, 
And  the  Somebody  comes  and  begins  to  blow." 

In  1686  Castin  was  at  Pentagoet.  The  place  must  have  fallen  into  sad 
neglect,  for  the  Governor  of  Canada  made  its  fortification  and  advantages  the 
subject  of  a  memoir  to  his  Government.  It  became  the  rendezvous  for  proj 
ects  against  New  England.  Quebec  was  not  difficult  of  access  by  river  and 
land  to  Castin's  fleet  Abenaquis.  Port  Royal  was  within  supporting  distance. 
The  Indians  interposed  a  barrier  between  English  aggression  and  the  French 
settlements.  They  were  the  weapon  freely  used  by  all  the  French  rulers  un 
til,  from  long  service,  it  became  blunted  and  unserviceable.  They  were  then 
left  to  shift  for  themselves. 

Here  Castin  continued  with  his  dusky  wife  and  brethren,  although  he  had 
inherited  an  income  of  five  million  livres  while  in  Acadia.  By  degrees  he 
had  likewise  amassed  a  fortune  of  two  or  three  hundred  thousand  crowns  "in 
good  dry  gold ;"  but  the  only  use  he  made  of  it  was  to  buy  presents  for  his 
fellow-savages,  who,  upon  their  return  from  the  hunt,  repaid  him  with  usury 
in  beaver-skins  and  peltries.2  In  1688  his  trading-house  was  plundered  by 
the  English.  It  is  said  he  died  in  America,  but  of  this  I  have  not  the  evi 
dence. 

Vincent  de  Castin  never  changed  his  wife,  as  the  Indian  customs  permit 
ted,  wishing,  it  is  supposed,  by  his  example  to  impress  upon  them  the  sanctity 

1  Denonville,  who  succeeded  M.  De  la  Barre  as  governor-general,  was  maitre  de  camp  to  the 
queen's  dragoons.     He  was  succeeded  by  Frontenac. 

2  Denonville's  and  La  Hontan's  letters. 


CASTINE.  81 

of  marriage  as  a  part  of  the  Christian  religion.  He  had  several  daughters,  all 
of  whom  were  well  married  to  Frenchmen,  and  had  good  dowries;  one  was 
captured  by  Colonel  Church  in  1704.  He  had  also  a  son. 

In  1721,  during  what  was  known  as  Lovewell's  war,  in  which  Mather  in 
timates,  with  many  nods  and  winks  set  down  in  print,  the  English  were  the 
aggressors,  Castin  the  younger  was  kidnaped,  and  carried  to  Boston  a  pris 
oner.  His  offense  was  in  attending  a  council  of  the  Abenaquis  in  his  capacity 
of  chief.  He  was  brought  before  the  council  and  interrogated.  His  mien 
was  frank  and  fearless.  In  his  uniform  of  a  French  officer,  he  stood  with 
true  Indian  sang  froid  in  the  presence  of  men  who  he  knew  were  able  to 
deal  heavy  blows. 

"  I  am,"  said  he,  "  an  Abenaquis  by  my  mother.  All  my  life  has  been 
passed  among  the  nation  that  has  made  me  chief  and  commander  over  it. 
I  could  not  be  absent  from  a  council  where  the  interests  of  my  brethren  were 
to  be  discussed.  The  Governor  of  Canada  sent  me  no  orders.  The  dress  I 
now  wear  is  not  a  uniform,  but  one  becoming  my  rank  and  birth  as  an  officer 
in  the  troops  of  the  most  Christian  king,  my  master." 

The  young  baron  was  placed  in  the  custody  of  the  sheriff  of  Middlesex. 
He  was  kept  seven  months  a  prisoner,  and  then  released  before  his  friends, 
the  Abenaquis,  could  strike  a  blow  for  his  deliverance.  This  once  formidable 
tribe  was  such  no  longer.  In  1689  it  scarcely  numbered  a  hundred  warriors. 
English  policy  had  set  a  price  upon  the  head  of  every  hostile  Indian.  Castin, 
soon  after  his  release,  returned  to  the  old  family  chateau  among  the  Pyrenees. 

"The  choir  is  singing  the  matin  song; 

The  doors  of  the  church  are  opened  wide ; 
The  people  crowd,  and  press,  and  throng 

To  see  the  bridegroom  and  the  bride. 
They  enter  and  pass  along  the  nave ; 
They  stand  upon  the  farthest  grave ; 
The  bells  are  ringing  soft  and  slow; 
The  living  above  and  the  dead  below 
Give  their  blessing  on  one  and  twain ; 
The  warm  wind  blows  from  the  hills  of  Spain, 
The  birds  are  building,  the  leaves  are  green, 
The  Baron  Castine  of  St.  Castine 
Hath  come  at  last  to  his  own  again." 

According  to  the  French  historian,  Charlevoix,  the  Capuchins  had  a  hos 
pice  here  in  1646,  when  visited  by  Fere  Dreuillettes.  I  may  not  neglect 
these  worthy  fathers,  whose  disputes  about  sleeves  and  cowls,  Voltaire  says, 
were  more  than  any  among  the  philosophers.  The  shrewdness  of  these  old 
monks  in  the  choice  of  a  location  has  been  justified  by  the  cities  and  towns 
sprung  from  the  sites  of  their  primitive  missions.  Here,  as  elsewhere, 

" — These  black  crows 

Had  pitched  by  instinct  on  the  fattest  fallows." 
G 


82  THE  NEW  ENGLAND  COAST. 


"I,"  said  Napoleon,  at  St.  Helena,  "rendered  all  the  burying-places  inde 
pendent  of  the  priests.  I  hated  friars"  (frati),  "and  was  the  annihilate!  of 
them  and  of  their  receptacles  of  crime,  the  monasteries,  where  every  vice  was 
practiced  with  impunity.  A  set  of  miscreants"  (scelerati)  "who  in  general  are 
a  dishonor  to  the  human  race.  Of  priests  I  would  have  always  allowed  a 
sufficient  number,  but  uofrati."  A  Capuchin,  says  an  old  dictionary  of  1676, 
is  a  friar  of  St.  Francis's  order,  wearing  a  cowl,  or  capouch,  but  no  shirt  nor 
breeches.1 

Opening  our  history  at  the  epoch  of  the  settlement  of  New  France,  and 
turning  over  page  by  page  the  period  we  have  been  reviewing,  there  is  no 
more  hideous  chapter  than  the  infernal  cruelties  of  the  Society  of  Jesus. 
Their  agency  in  the  terrible  persecutions  of  the  Huguenots  is  too  well  known 
to  need  repetition.  St.  Bartholomew, the  broken  pledge  of  the  Edict  of  Nantes, 
the  massacres  of  Vivarais,  of  Kouergue,  and  of  Languedoc  are  among  their 
monuments. 

The  rigor  with  which  infractions  of  the  discipline  of  the  order  were  pun 
ished  would  be  difficult  to  believe,  if  unsupported  by  trustworthy  testimony. 
Francis  Seldon,  a  young  pupil  of  the  Jesuit  College  at  Paris,  was  imprisoned 
thirty-one  years,  seventeen  of  which  were  passed  at  St.  Marguerite,  and  four 
teen  in  the  Bastile.  His  crime  was  a  lampoon  of  two  lines  affixed  to  the  col 
lege  door.  A  lettre  de  cachet  from  Louis  XIY.  consigned  this  poor  lad  of 
only  sixteen  to  the  Bastile  in  1674,  from  which  he  only  emerged  in  1705,  by 
the  assignment  of  a  rich  inheritance  to  the  Society,  impiously  called,  of  Jesus. 

The  siege  of  La  Rochelle,  and  slaughter  of  the  Huguenots,  is  believed  to 
have  been  nothing  more  than  a  duel  between  Richelieu  and  Buckingham,  for 
the  favor  of  Anne  of  Austria.  It  was,  however,  in  the  name  of  religion  that 
the  population  of  France  was  decimated.  Colbert,  in  endeavoring  to  stem  the 
tide  of  persecution,  fell  in  disgrace.  Louvois  seconded  with  devilish  zeal  the 
projects  of  the  Jesuits,  which  had  no  other  end  than  the  total  destruction  of 
the  reformed  faith.  In  1675  Pere  Lachaise  entered  on  his  functions  of  father- 
confessor  to  the  king.  He  was  powerfully  seconded  by  his  society;  but  they, 
fearing  his  Majesty  might  regard  it  as  a  pendant  of  St.  Bartholomew,  hesi 
tated  to  press  a  decisive  coup  d'etat  against  the  Protestants. 

There  was  at  the  court  of  Louis  the  widow  Scarron,  become  De  Main- 
tenon,  declared  mistress  of  the  "king,  who  modestly  aspired  to  replace  Marie 
Therese  of  Austria  upon  the  throne  of  France.  To  her  the  Jesuits  address 
ed  themselves.  It  is  believed  the  compact  between  the  worthy  contracting 
parties  exacted  no  less  of  each  than  the  advancement  of  their  mutual  proj 
ects  through  the  seductions  of  the  courtesan,  and  the  fears  for  his  salvation 
the  Jesuits  were  to  inspire  in  the  mind  of  the  king.  Louis  believed  in  the 
arguments  of  Madame  De  Main-tenon,  and  signed  the  Edict  of  Nantes ;  he 

1  Capuchin,  a  cowl  or  hood. 


CASTINE.  83 

ceded  to  the  threats  or  counsels  of  his  confessor,  and  secretly  espoused  Ma 
dame  De  Maintenon.  The  25th  October,  1685,  the  royal  seal  was,  it  is  not 
doubted  by  her  inspiration,  appended  to  the  barbarous  edict,  drawn  up  by  the 
Pere  Le  Tellier,  under  the  auspices  of  the  Society  of  Jesus.1 

France  had  already  lost  a  hundred  thousand  of  her  bravest  and  most 
skillful  children.  She  was  now  to  lose  many  more.  Among  the  fugitives 
driven  from  the  fatherland  were  many  who  fled,  as  the  Pilgrims  had  done 
into  Holland.  Some  sought  the  New  World,  and  their  descendants  were 
such  men  as  John  Jay,  Elias  Boudinot,  James  Bowdoin,  and  Peter  Faneuil. 

Before  the  famous  edict  of  1685,  the  Huguenots  had  been  forbidden  to 
establish  themselves  either  in  Canada  or  Acadia.  They  were  permitted  to 
visit  the  ports  for  trade,  but  not  to  exercise  their  religion.  The  Jesuits  took 
care  that  the  edict  was  enforced  in  the  French  possessions.  I  have  thought 
the  oft-cited  intolerance  of  the  Puritans  might  be  effectively  contrasted  with 
the  diabolical  zeal  with  which  Catholic  Christendom  pursued  the  annihilation 
of  the  reformed  religion. 

The  Jesuits  obtained  at  an  early  day  a  preponderating  influence  in  Cana 
da  and  in  Acadia.  It  is  believed  the  governor-generals  had  not  such  real 
power  as  the  bishops  of  Quebec.  At  a  later  day,  they  were  able  well-nigh 
to  paralyze  Mont  calm's  defense  of  Quebec.  The  fathers  of  the  order,  with 
the  crucifix  held  aloft,  preached  crusades  against  the  English  to  the  savages 
they  were  sent  to  convert.  One  of  the  fiercest  Canabas  chiefs  related  to  an 
English  divine  that  the  friars  told  his  people  the  blessed  Virgin  was  a  French 
lady,  and  that  her  son,  Jesus  Christ,  had  been  killed  by  the  English.2  One 
might  say  the  gray  hairs  of  old  men  and  the  blood -dabbled  ringlets  of  in 
nocent  children  were  laid  on  the  altars  of  their  chapels. 

We  can  afford  to  smile  at  the  forecast  of  Louis,  when  he  says  to  M.  De 
la  Barre  in  1683,  "I  am  persuaded,  like  you,  that  the  discoveries  of  Sieur  La 
Salle  are  altogether  useless,  and  it  is  necessary,  hereafter,  to  put  a  stop  to 
such  enterprises,  which  can  have  no  other  effect  than  to  scatter  the  inhabit 
ants  by  the  hope  of  gain,  and  to  diminish  the  supply  of  beaver."  We  still 
preserve  in  Louisiana  the  shadow  of  the  sceptre  of  this  monarch,  whose  needy 
successor  at  Versailles  sold  us,  for  fifteen  millions,  a  territory  that  could  pay 
the  German  subsidy  with  a  year's  harvest. 

Doubtless  the  little  bell  in  the  hospice  turret,  tolling  for  matins  or  vespers, 
was  often  heard  by  the  fisher  in  the  bay,  as  he  rested  on  his  oars  and  repeat 
ed  an  ave,  or  chanted  the  parting  hymn  of  the  Provengal: 

"O,  vierge!     O,  Marie! 

Pour  moi  priez  Dieu ; 
Adieu,  adieu,  pntrie, 
Provence,  adieu." 

1  Count  Frontenac  was  a  relative  of  De  Maintenon.  a  Cotton  Mather. 


84  THE  NEW  ENGLAND  COAST. 

.  There  is  a  pleasant  ramble  over  the  hill  by  the  cemetery,  with  the  same 
accompaniments  of  green  turf,  limpid  bay,  and  cool  breezes  everywhere.  Inter 
mitting  puffs,  ruffling  the  water  here  and  there,  fill  the  sails  of  coasting  craft, 
while  others  lie  becalmed  within  a  fe\v  cable- lengths  of  them.  Near  the 
north-west  corner  of  the  ground  I  discovered  vestiges  of  another  small  battery. 
Castine  having  assumed  the  functions  of  a  town  within  a  period  compara 
tively  recent,  her  cemetery  shows  few  interesting  stones.  The  ancients  of  the 
little  Acadian  hamlet  lie  in  forgotten  graves;  no  moss-covered  tablets  for  the 
antiquary  to  kneel  beside,  and  trace  the  time-worn  course  of  the  chisel,  are 
there.  Numbers  of  graves  are  indicated  only  by  the  significant  heaving  of 
the  turf.  In  one  part  of  the  field  is  a  large  and  rudely  fashioned  slate-stone 
standing  at  the  head  of  a  tumulus.  A  tablet  with  these  lines  is  affixed: 

IN    MEMORY    OF 

CHARLES  STEWART, 
The  earliest  occupant  of  this  Mansion  of  the  Dead, 

A  Native  of  Scotland, 

And  ist  Lieut.  Comm.  of  his  B.  M.  74th  Regt.  of  foot,  or  Argyle  Highlanders, 
Who  died  in  this  Town,  while  it  was  in  possession  of  the  Enemy, 

March,  A.D.  1783, 

And  was  interred  beneath  this  stone, 
^Et.  about  40  yrs. 


This  Tablet  was  inserted 
A.D.  1849. 

The  tablet  has  a  tale  to  tell.  It  runs  that  Stewart  quarreled  with  a 
brother  officer  at  the  mess-table,  and  challenged  him.  Hearing  of  the  intend 
ed  duel,  the  commanding  officer  reprimanded  the  hot-blooded  Scotsman  in 
such  terms  that,  stung  to  the  quick,  he  fell,  Roman-like,  on  his  own  sword. 

Elsewhere  I  read  the  name  of  Captain  Isaiah  Skinner,  who,  as  master  of  a 
packet  plying  to  the  opposite  shore,  "  thirty  thousand  times  braved  the  per 
ils  of  our  bay." 

While  I  was  in  Castine  I  paid  a  visit  to  the  factory  in  which  lobsters  are 
canned  for  market.  A  literally  "smashing"  business  was  carrying  on,  but 
with  an  uncleanness  that  for  many  months  impaired  my  predilection  for  this 
delicate  crustacean.  The  lobsters  are  brought  in  small  vessels  from  the  low 
er  bay.  They  are  then  tossed,  while  living,  into  vats  containing  salt  water 
boiling  hot,  where  they  receive  a  thorough  steaming.  They  are  next  trans 
ferred  to  long  tables,  and,  after  cooling,  are  opened.  Only  the  flesh  of  the 
larger  claws  and  tail  is  used,  the  remainder  being  cast  aside.  The  reserved 
portions  are  put  into  tin  cans  that,  after  being  tightly  soldered,  are  subjected 
to  a  new  steaming  of  five  and  a  half  hours  to  keep  them  fresh.1 

In  order  to  arrest  the  wholesale  slaughter  of  the  lobster,  stringent  laws 

1  Isle  an  Haut  is  particularly  renowned  for  the  size  and  quality  of  these  fish. 


CASTINE.  85 

have  been  made  in  Maine  and  Massachusetts.  The  fishery  is  prohibited  dur 
ing  certain  months,  and  a  fine  is  imposed  for  every  fish  exposed  for  sale  of 
less  than  a  certain  growth.  Of  a  heap  containing  some  eight  hundred  lob 
sters  brought  to  the  factory,  not  fifty  were  of  this  size;  a  large  proportion 
were  not  eight  inches  long.  Frequent  boiling  in  the  same  water,  with  the 
slovenly  appearance  of  the  operatives,  male  and  female,  would  suggest  a 
doubt  whether  plain  Penobscot  lobster  is  as  toothsome  as  is  supposed.  The 
whole  process  was  in  marked  contrast  with  the  scrupulous  neatness  with 
which  similar  operations  are  elsewhere  conducted;  nor  was  there  particular 
scrutiny  as  to  whether  the  lobsters  were  already  dead  when  received  from 
the  vessels. 

Wood,  in  the  "New  England  Prospect,"  mentions  that  lobsters  were  so 


LOBSTER   POT. 


plenty  and  little  esteemed  they  were  seldom  eaten.  They,  were  frequent 
ly,  he  says,  of  twenty  pounds'  weight.  The  Indians  used  lobsters  to  bait 
their  hooks,  arid  ate  them  when  they  could  not  get  bass.  I  have  seen  an  ac 
count  of  a  lobster  that  weighed  thirty-five  pounds.  Josselyn  mentions  that 
he  saw  one  weighing  twenty  pounds,  and  that  the  Indians  dried  them  for 
food  as  they  did  lampreys  and  oysters. 

The  first-comers  into  New  England  waters  were  not  more  puzzled  to  find 
the  ancient  city  of  Norumbega  than  I  to  reach  the  fabulous  Down  East  of 
the  moderns.  In  San  Francisco  the  name  is  vaguely  applied  to  the  territory 
east  of  the  Mississippi,  though  more  frequently  the  rest  of  the  republic  is  al 
luded  to  as  "The  States."  South  of  the  obliterated  Mason  and  Dixon's  line, 
the  region  east  of  the  Alleghanies  and  north  of  the  Potomac  is  Down  East, 
and  no  mistake  about  it.  In  New  York  you  are  as  far  as  ever  from  this  terra 
incognita.  In  Connecticut  they  shrug  their  shoulders  and  point  you  about 
north-north-east.  Down  East,  say  Massachusetts  people,  is  just  across  our 
eastern  border.  Arrived  on  the  Penobscot,  I  fancied  myself  there  at  last. 


86 


THE  NEW  ENGLAND   COAST. 


"Whither  bound?"  I  asked  of  a  fisherman,  getting  up  his  foresail  before 
loosing  from  the  wharf. 

"  Sir,  to  you.     Down  East." 

The  evident  determination  to  shift  the  responsibility  forbade  further  pur 
suit  of  this  fictitious  land.  Besides,  Maine  people  are  indisposed  to  accept 
without  challenge  the  name  so  universally  applied  to  them  of  Down  Easters. 
We  do  not  say  down  to  the  North  Pole,  and  we  do  say  down  South.  The 
higher  latitude  we  make  northwardly  the  farther  down  we  get.  Neverthe 
less,  disposed  as  I  avow  myself  to  present  the  case  fairly,  the  people  of  Maine 
uniformly  say  "  up  to  the  westward,"  when  speaking  of  Massachusetts.  Of 
one  thing  I  am  persuaded — Down  East  is  nowhere  in  New  England. 


OLD  FOKT   FREDERICK,  PEMAQUID   POINT. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

PEMAQUID     POINT. 

"Love  them  thy  land,  with  love  far-brought 
From  out  the  storied  Past,  and  used 
Within  the  Present,  but  transfused 
Thro'  future  time  by  power  of  thought." 

TENNYSON. 

A  VERY  small  fraction  of  the  people  of  New  England,  I  venture  to  say, 
•J--*-  know  more  of  Pemaquid  than  that  such  a  place  once  existed  somewhere 
within  her  limits ;  yet  it  is  scarcely  possible  to  take  tip  a  book  on  New  En 
gland  in  which  the  name  does  not  occur  with  a  frequency  that  is  of  itself  a 
spur  to  inquiry.  If  a  few  volumes  be  consulted,  the  materials  for  history  be 
come  abundant.  After  accumulating  for  two  hundred  years,  or  more,  what 
belongs  to  the  imperishable  things  of  earth,  this  old  outpost  of  English  pow 
er  has  returned  into  second  childhood,  and  become  what  it  originally  was, 
namely,  a  fishing-village. 

But  those  who  delight  in  ferreting  through  the  chinks  and  crannies  of  an 
out-of-the-way  locality,  will  be  repaid  by  starting  from  Damariscotta  on  a 
coastwise  voyage  of  discovery.  In  traveling  by  railway  from  Portland,  with 
your  face  to  the  rising  sun,  you  catch  occasional  glimpses  of  the  ocean,  and 
you  receive  imperfect  impressions  of  the  estuaries  that  indent  her  "  hundred- 
harbored  "  shores;  but  from  the  window  of  a  stage-coach  journeying  at  six 
miles  an  hour  the  material  and  mental  eye  may  receive  and  fix  ideas  more  dis 
tinct  and  enduring. 

I  reached  the  little  village  of  New  Harbor,  at  Pemaquid  Point,  in  time  to 
see  the  sun  crimson  in  setting,  a  cloudless  sky,  and  an  unruffled  sea.  Monhe- 
gan  Island  grew  of  a  deep  purple  in  the  twilight  shadows.  The  tower  lamps 
were  alight,  and  from  neighboring  islands  other  beacons  twinkled  pleasantly 


88 


THE  NEW  ENGLAND   COAST. 


THE   LAND-BREEZE   OF   EVENING." 


on  the  waters.     Coasting  vessels  trimmed  their  sails  to  catch  the  land-breeze 

of  evening.     Then  the  moon  arose. 

The  little  harbor  beneath  me  contained  a  few  small  fishing-vessels  at  an 
chor.  One  or  two 
others  were  slow 
ly  working  their 
way  in.  The  cot 
tages  straggling 
by  the  shore  were 
not  numerous  or 
noticeable.  It 
was  still  some 
three  miles  to  the 
light-house  at  the 
I  extremity  of  the 
j  point. 


At  Bristol 
Mills  I  had  ex 
changed  the  stage  for  a  beach-wagon.  The  driver  was  evidently  a  person 
of  consequence  here,  as  he  usually  becomes  in  such  isolated  neighborhoods 
out  of  the  beaten  paths  of  travel.  His  loquacity  was  marvelous.  He  had 
either  a  message  or  a  missive  for  every  one  he  met ;  and  at  the  noise  of  our 
wheels  house  doors  opened,  and  the  noses  and  lips  of  youngsters  were  flat 
tened  in  a  whimsical  manner  against  the  window-panes.  I  observed  that  he 
invariably  saluted  the  girls  by  their  Christian  names  as  they  stood  shyly 
peeping  through  half-opened  doors;  adding  the  middle  name  to  the  baptismal 
whenever  one  might  be  claimed,  as  Olive  Ann,  Matilda  Jane,  or  Hannah  Ann. 
I  should  have  called  some  of  them  plain  Olive,  or  Matilda,  or  Hannah.  The 
men  answered  to  such  names  as  Dominicus,  Jott,  and  'Life  (Eliphalet).  Thus 
this  brisk  little  fellow's  passing  was  the  great  event  over  four  miles  of  road. 

I  should  have  gone  directly  to  the  old  settlement  on  the  other  side  of  the 
Neck,  now  known  as  "The  Factory;"  but  here,  for  a  wonder,  were  no  hotels, 
and  travelers  are  dependent  upon  private  hospitality.  "  Do  you  think  they 
will  take  me  in  over  there  ?"  I  queried,  pointing  to  the  old  mansion  on  the 
site  of  Fort  Frederick.  The  driver  shook  his  head. 

"Are  they  quite  full  ?" 

"Solid,"  was  his  reply,  given  with  an  emphasis  that  conveyed  the  impres 
sion  of  sardines  in  a  box.  So  I  was  fain  to  rest  with  a  fisherman  turned  store 
keeper. 

The  little  rock-environed  harbor  on  the  side  of  Muscongus  Bay  is  a  mere 
roadstead,  unfit  for  shipping  in  heavy  easterly  weather.  This  place,  like  many 
neighboring  sea-coast  hamlets,  was  busily  engaged  in  the  mackerel  and  men 
haden  fishery.  The  latter  fish,  usually  called  "  porgee,"  is  in  demand  at  the 


PEMAQUID  POINT.  89 

factories  along  shore  for  its  oil,  and  among  Bank  fishermen  as  bait.  Some  old 
cellars  on  the  north  side  of  New  Harbor  indicated  the  locale  of  a  former  gen 
eration  of  fishermen.  On  this  side,  too,  there  existed,  not  many  years  ago,  re 
mains  of  a  fortification  of  ancient  date.1  Shot,  household  utensils,  etc.,  have 
been  excavated  there.  There  is  also  by  the  shore  what  was  either  the  lair 
of  wild  beasts,  or  a  place  of  concealment  frequented  by  savages.  Mr.  M'Far- 
land,  one  of  the  oldest  residents,  mentioned  that  he  had  found  an  arrow-head 
in  the  den.  Various  coins  and  Indian  implements,  some  of  which  I  saw,  have 
been  turned  up  with  the  soil  on  this  neck  of  land. 

The  visitor  will  not  leave  New  Harbor  without  hearing:  of  sharp  work 
done  there  in  the  war  of  1812.  The  enemy's  cruisers  kept  the  coast  in  per 
petual  alarm  by  their  marauding  excursions  in  defenseless  harbors.  One 
day  a  British  frigate  hove  to  in  the  Bay,  and  in  a  short  time  a  number  of 
barges  were  seen  to  push,  off,  fully  manned,  for  the  shore.  The  small  militia 
guard  then  stationed  in  Old  Fort  Frederick  was  notified,  and  the  residents 
of  New  Harbor  prepared  for  action.  As  the  leading  British  barge  entered 
the  harbor,  it  was  hailed  by  an  aged  fisherman,  who  warned  the  officer  in 
charge  not  to  attempt  to  land.  "  If  a  single  gun  is  fired,"  replied  the  Briton, 
"the  town  shall  be  destroyed." 

Not  a  single  gun,  but  a  deadly  volley,  answered  the  threat.  The  rocks 
were  bristling  with  old  queen's  arms  and  ducking-guns,  in  the  grasp  of  a  score 
of  resolute  fellows.  Every  shot  was  well  aimed.  The  barge  drifted  help 
lessly  out  with  the^tide,  and  the  captain  of  the  frigate  had  a  sorry  dispatch 
for  the  admiral  at  Halifax. 

Leaving  New  Harbor,  I  crossed  a  by-path  that  conducted  to  the  factory 
road.  Here  and  elsewhere  I  had  listened  to  the  story  of  the  destruction 
of  the  menhaden,  from  the  fishermen's  point  of  view.  They  apprehend  noth 
ing  less  than  the  total  disappearance  of  this  fish  at  no  distant  day.  "  What 
are  we  poor  fellows  going  to  do  when  they  catch  up  all  the  porgees?"  asked 
one.  The  fishery,  as  conducted  by  the  factories,  is  regarded  by  the  fishermen 
proper  as  the  introduction  of  improved  machinery  that  dispenses  with  labor 
is  looked  upon  by  the  operative.  Although  the  oil  factories  purchase  the 
catch  that  is  brought  in,  the  owners  are  considered  intruders,  and  experi 
ence  many  petty  vexations.  As  men  of  capital,  possessed  of  all  needful  ap 
pliances  for  their  business,  they  are  really  independent  of  the  resident  pop 
ulation,  to  whom,  on  the  other  hand,  they  disburse  money  and  give  employ 
ment.  The  question  with  which  the  political  economist  will  have  to  deal  is 
the  expected  extinction  of  the  menhaden. 

I  went  through  the  factory  at  Pemaquid  Point,  and  was  persuaded  the 
fish  could  not  long  support  the  drain  upon  them.  The  porgee  begins  to  fre- 

1  This  work  is  on  an  old  map  of  the  Kennebec  patent.  It  was  about  twenty  rods  square,  with 
a  bastion.  A  house  now  stands  in  the  space  it  formerly  occupied. 


90  THE  NEW  ENGLAND  COAST. 

quent  these  waters  in  June.  The  first  -  comers  are  lean,  and  will  make  only 
a  gallon  of  oil  to  the  barrel;  those  of  September  yield  four  gallons.  A  fleet 
of  propellers,  as  well  as  sailing-craft  of  forty  to  fifty  tons  burden,  are  kept 
constantly  employed. 

At  Pemaquid  harbor,  the  fish  cargoes  are  transferred  from  the  steamer 
to  an  elevated  tank  of  the  capacity  of  four  thousand  barrels.  Underneath 
the  tank  a  train-way,  conducting  by  an  inclined  plane  to  the  second  story  of 
the  factory,  is  laid  upon  the  wharf.  In  the  bottom  of  the  tank  is  a  trap-door 
that,  upon  being  opened,  quickly  fills  a  car  placed  below.  The  fish  are  then 
taken  into  the  factory  and  dumped  into  other  tanks,  containing  each  three 
car-loads,  or  about  sixty  barrels.  Here  steam  is  introduced,  rapidly  convert 
ing  the  fish  into  unsavory  chowder,  or  "mash."  As  many  as  a  dozen  of  these 
vats  were  in  constant  use.  The  oil  and  water  being  drawn  off  into  other 
vats,  the  product  is  obtained  through  the  simplest  of  machinery,  and  the  well- 
known  principle  that  in  an  admixture  with  water  oil  will  rise  to  the  surface. 
The  residuum  from  the  first  process  is  shoveled  into  perforated  iron  cylinders, 
by  men  standing  up  to  their  knees  in  the  steaming  mass.  It  is  then  sub 
jected  to  hydraulic  pressure,  and,  after  the  extraction  of  every  drop  of  oil,  is 
carefully  housed,  to  be  converted  into  phosphates.  The  water  is  passed  from 
tank  to  tank  until  completely  free  of  oil.  Nothing  is  lost. 

This  factory  had  a  capacity  of  three  thousand  barrels  per  day,  though  not 
of  the  largest  class.  Others  were  working  day  and  night  through  the  season, 
which  continues  for  about  three  months. 

I  walked  afterward  by  the  side  of  a  seine  two  hundred  fathoms  in  length, 
spread  upon  the  grass  in  order  to  contract  the  meshes.  One  of  them  frequent 
ly  costs  above  a  thousand  dollars,  and  is  sometimes  destroyed  at  the  first  cast 
ing  by  being  caught  on  the  ledges  in  shallow  water. 

An  old  hand  can  easily  tell  the  difference  between  a  school  of  mackerel 
and  one  of  menhaden.  The  former  rush  in  a  body  on  the  top  of  the  water, 
while  the  shoal  of  porgees  merely  ripples  the  surface,  as  is  sometimes  seen 
when  a  moving  body  of  water  impinges  against  a  counter -current.  The 
mackerel  takes  the  hook,  while  the  porgee  and  herring  never  do. 

The  talk  was  more  fishy  here  than  in  any  place  I  have  visited.  Here  they 
call  a  school,  or  shoal, "  a  pod  of  fish ;"  "  we  sot  round  a  pod"  being  a  com 
mon  expression.  The  small  vessels  are  called  seiners.  When  they  approach 
a  school,  the  seine  is  carried  out  in  boats,  one  end  being  attached  to  the  ves 
sel,  except  when  a  bad  sea  is  running.  I  have  seen  the  men  standing  up  to 
the  middle  among  the  fish  they  were  hauling  in;  and  they  are  sometimes 
obliged  to  abandon  half  their  draught. 

The  whole  process  of  rendering  menhaden  into  oil  is  less  offensive  to  the 
olfactories  than  might  be  supposed.  The  works  at  Pemaquid  Point  are  own 
ed  by  Judson,Tarr,  and  Co.,of  Rockport,  Massachusetts.  As  against  the  gen 
erally  received  opinion  that  they  were  destroying  fish  faster  than  the  losses 


PEMAQUID  POINT.  91 

could  be  repaired,  the  unusual  abundance  of  mackerel  the  last  year  was  cited. 
Mackerel,  however,  are  not  ground  up  at  the  rate  of  many  thousand  barrels 
per  day.  It  is  easy  to  conjecture  that  present  profit  is  more  looked  to  than 
future  scarcity.  The  product  of  menhaden  is  chiefly  used  in  the  adulteration 
of  linseed-oil.  This  fish  is  probably  the  same  called  by  the  French  "yaspa- 
rot"  and  found  by  them  in  great  abundance  on  the  coasts  of  Acadia. 

Some  account  of  the  habits  pf  the  mackerel,  as  given  by  veteran  fisher 
men,  is  of  interest  to  such  as  esteem  this  valuable  fish — and  the  number  is 
legion  —  if  not  in  explanation  of  the  seemingly  purposeless  drifting  of  the 
mackerel  fleet  along  shore,  which  is,  nevertheless,  guided  by  calculation. 

In  early  spring  the  old  breeding  fish  come  into  the  bays  and  rivers  to 
spawn.  They  then  return  northward.  These  mackerel  are  not  apt  to  take 
the  hook,  but  are  caught  in  weirs  and  seines,  a  practice  tending  to  inevitable 
scarcity  in  the  future.  The  parent  fish  come  back,  in  September,  to  the  local 
ities  where  they  have  spawned,  and,  taking  their  young  in  charge,  proceed  to 
the  warmer  waters  west  and  south.  Few  if  any  mackerel  spawn  south  of 
Cape  Cod. 

By  the  time  this  migration  occurs,  the  young  fish  have  grown  to  six  or 
seven  inches  in  length,  and  are  called  "  tinkers."  They  frequently  take  the 
bait  with  avidity,  but  are  too  small  for  market.  When  this  school  comes 
along,  the  fishermen  prepare  to  follow,  saying,  "The  mackerel  are  bound  west, 
and  we  must  work  west  with  them."  These  first -comers  are  usually  fol 
lowed  by  a  second  school  of  better  size  and  quality.  I  have  often  seen  num 
bers  of  young  mackerel,  of  three  to  four  inches  in  length,  left  in  shallow  pools 
upon  the  flats  by  the  tide  in  midsummer. 

In  the  midst  of  a  "biting  school"  no  sport  could  be  more  exciting  or  sat 
isfying.  At  such  times  the  mackerel  resemble  famished  wolves,  snapping 
and  crowding  for  the  bait,  rather  than  harmless  fishes.  This  unexampled  vo 
racity  makes  them  an  easy  prey,  and  they  are  taken  as  fast  as  the  line  can  be 
thrown  over.  It  not  unfrequently  happens  that  the  school  will  either  sink  or 
suddenly  refuse  the  bait,  even  while  swarming  about  the  sides  of  the  vessels. 
This  is  vexatious,  but  there  is  no  help  for  it.  The  fleet  must  lie  idle  until  the 
capricious  or  overfed  fish  is  hungry. 

Mackerel  swim  in  deep  water,  and  are  brought  to  the  surface  by  casting 
over  quantities  of  ground  bait.  If  they  happen  to  be  on  the  surface  in  a 
storm,  at  the  first  peal  of  thunder  they  will  sink  to  the  bottom.  The  move 
ments  of  the  fish  in  the  water  are  like  a  gleam  of  light,  and  it  dies  hard  when 
out  of  it.  The  mackerel  was  in  great  abundance  when  New  England  was 
first  visited. 

In  the  confusion  naturally  incident  to  accounts  of  early  discoveries  on  our 
coast  of  New  England,  it  is  pleasant  to  find  one  vantage-ground  from  which 
you  can  not  be  dislodged.  In  this  respect  Pemaquid  stands  almost  alone. 
It  has  never  been  called  by  any  other  name.  Possibly  it  may  have  embraced 


92  THE  NEW  ENGLAND  COAST. 

either  more  or  less  of  the  surrounding  territory  or  adjacent  waters  than  at 
present ;  still  there  is  eminent  satisfaction  in  standing  at  Pemaquid  on  im 
pregnable  ground. 

In  the  minds  of  some  old  writers  Pemaquid  was  unquestionably  confound 
ed  with  the  Penobscot.  There  is  a  description  of  Pemaquid  River  from  the 
Hakluyt  papers,1  which  makes  it  the  easternmost  river,  one  excepted;  of  Mavo- 
shen,  manifestly  a  name  erroneously  applied,  as  the  description  is  as  far  from 
coinciding  with  the  true  Pemaquid  as  is  its  location  by  Hakluyt.  In  this  ac 
count  the  Sagadahoc  and  town  of  Kennebec  are  also  mentioned.  Like  many 
others,  it  is  more  curious  than  instructive. 

It  also  appears,  to  the  student's  dismay,  that  in  some  instances  the  discov 
erers  were  apprehensive  of  drawing  attention  to  any  new-found  port  or  har 
bor,  as  it  would  render  their  monopoly  of  less  value.  The  account  of  Wey- 
mouth's  voyage  by  James  Rosier  omitted  the  latitude,  doubtless  with  this 
object.  His  narrative,  if  not  written  to  mislead,  was  confessedly  not  intend 
ed  to  instruct.  How  is  the  historian  to  follow  such  a  clue  ?  Fortunately, 
after  many  puzzling  and  unsatisfactory  conjectures,  the  account  of  William 
Strachey  makes  all  clear,  so  far  as  Pemaquid  is  in  question.  Weymouth's 
first  landfall  was  in  42°,  and  he  coasted  northward  to  44°.  Strachey  speaks 
of  "the  isles  and  rivers,  together  with  that  little  one  of  Pemaquid." 

Sir  F.  Gorges,  in  his  "  Brief  Narration,"  mentions  that  "  it  pleased  God  "  to 
bring  Captain  Wey  mouth,  on  his  return  in  1605,  into  the  harbor  of  Plymouth, 
where  he,  Sir  Ferdinando,  then  commanded.2  Captain  Weymouth,  he  contin 
ues,  had  been  dispatched  by  the  Lord  Arundel  of  Wardour  in  search  of  the 
North-west  Passage,  but  falling  short  of  his  course,  had  happened  into  a  river 
on  the  coast  of  America  called  Pemaquid.  In  the  reprint  of  Sir  F.  Gorges's 
invaluable  narrative3  the  word  Penobscot  is  placed  after  Pemaquid  in  brack 
ets.  It  does  not  appear  in  the  original. 

Pemaquid,  then,  becomes  one  of  the  pivotal  points  of  New  England  dis 
covery,  as  it  subsequently  was  of  her  history.  As  the  French  had  directed 
their  early  efforts  toward  the  Penobscot,  so  the  English  had  imbibed  strong 
predilections  for  the  Sagadahoc,  or  Kennebec.  Weymouth  and  Pring  had 
paved  the  way;  the  Indians  transported  to  England  had  been  able  to  give 
an  intelligible  account  of  the  country,  the  configuration  of  the  coasts,  the 
magnitude  of  the  rivers,  and  power  of  the  nations  peopling  the  banks. 

The  Kennebec  was  known  to  the  French  earlier  than  to  the  English,  and 
by  its  proper  name.  Champlain's  voyage  in  the  autumn  of  1604  extended, 
it  is  believed,  as  far  as  Monhegan,  as  he  names  an  isle  ten  leagues  from 
" Quinebequi"  and  says  he  went  three  or  four  leagues  beyond  it.  Moreover, 


1  "Purchas,"  vol.  iv.,  1874. 

2  In  1603  Gorges  was  deprived  of  the  command,  but  had  it  restored  to  him  the  same  year. 

3  "Collections  of  the  Massachusetts  Historical  Society,"  vol.  vi.,  3d  series. 


PEMAQUID  POINT.  93 

he  had  coasted  both  shores  of  the  Penobscot  bay,  penetrating  at  least  as  far 
as  the  Narrows,  below  Bucksport.  He  calls  the  Camden  hills  Bedabedec, 
and  says  the  Kennebec  and  Penobscot  Indians  were  at  enmity.  De  Monts 
followed  Champlain  in  June,  1605,  having  sailed  from  St.  Croix  two  days 
after  Weymouth's  departure  from  the  coast  for  England.  He  was  more  than 
two  months  in  exploring  a  hundred  and  twenty  leagues  of  sea-coast,  visiting 
and  observing  the  Kennebec,  of  which  a  straightforward  story  is  told.  Even 
then  the  river  was  known  as  a  thoroughfare  to  Canada.1 

The  mouth  of  the  Kennebec  is  interesting  as  the  scene  of  the  third  at 
tempt  to  obtain  a  foothold  on  New  England's  soil.  This  was  the  colony  of 
Chief-justice  Popham,  which  arrived  oif  Monhegan  in  August,  1607. 2  This 
undertaking  was  intended  to  be  permanent.  There  were  two  well-provided 
ships,  and  a  hundred  and  twenty  colonists.3  The  leader  of  the  enterprise, 
George  Popham,  was  accompanied  by  Captain  Raleigh  Gilbert,  nephew  and 
namesake  of  Sir  Walter  Raleigh. 

A  settlement  was  effected  on  Hunnewell's  Point,  at  the  mouth  of  the  Ken 
nebec.  The  winter  was  one  of  unexampled  severity,  and  the  new-comers  had 
been  late  in  preparing  for  it.  Encountering  privations  similar  to  those  after 
ward  endured  by  the  Plymouth  settlers,  they  lost  courage,  and  when  news 
of  the  death  of  their  patron,  the  chief-justice,  reached  them,  were  ready  to 
abandon  the  project.  Popham,  having  died  in  February,  was  succeeded  by 
Gilbert,  whose  affairs  recalling  him  to  England,  the  whole  colony  deserted 
their  settlement  at  Fort  St.  George  in  the  spring  of  1608.  Popham  was  the 
first  English  magistrate  in  New  England. 

Mather  attributes  the  failure  of  attempts  to  colonize  the  parts  of  New 
England  north  of  Plymouth  to  their  being  founded  upon  the  advancement 
of  worldly  interests.  "A  constant  series  of  disasters  has  confounded  them," 
avers  the  witch-hating  old  divine.  One  minister,  he  says,  was  exhorting  the 
eastern  settlers  to  be  more  religious,  putting  the  case  to  them  much  in  this 
way,  when  a  voice  from  the  congregation  cried  out,  "Sir,  you  are  mistaken; 
you  think  you  are  preaching  to  the  people  of  the  Bay.  Our  main  end  was  to 
catch  fish." 

"  Did  you  ever  see  Cotton  Mather's  *  History  of  New  England  ?' — one  of 
the  oddest  books  I  ever  perused,  but  deeply  interesting."  The  question  is 
put  by  Southey,  and  I  repeat  it,  as,  if  you  have  not  read  Mather's  "Magnalia 
Christi  Americana,"  you  have  not  seen  the  corner-stone  of  New  England  his 
torical  and  ecclesiastical  literature. 

Apropos  of  the  immigration  into  New  England,  it  was  openly  bruited  in 
England  that  King  Charles  I.  would  have  been  glad  if  the  thousands  who 
went  over  were  drowned  in  the  sea.  Between  the  years  1628  and  1635  the 

1  See  Lescnrbot,  p.  497.  2  Strachey.     Gorges  says  August  8th  ;  Smith,  August  llth. 

8  A  fly-boat,  the  Gift  of  God,  George  Popham  ;  Mary  and  John,  of  London,  Raleigh  Gilbert. 


94 


THE  NEW  ENGLAND   COAST. 


exodus  was  very  great,  and  gave  the  king  much  displeasure.  No  one  was 
permitted  to  remove  without  the  royal  permission.  Even  young  Harry  Vane 
had  to  solicit  the  good  offices  of  his  father,  Sir  Harry,  to  obtain  a  pass.  He 

was  then  out  of  favor 
at  court  and  at  home, 
through  his  Geneva  no 
tions  about  kneeling  to 
receive  the  Sacrament, 
and  other  Puritan  ideas. 
"Let  him  go,"  growls  an 
old  writer;  "has  not  Sir 
Harry  other  sons  but 
him?" 

The  colony  of  Popham 
began  better  than  it  end 
ed.  A  fort,  doubtless  no 
more  than  a  palisade  with 
platforms  for  guns,  was 
marked  out.  A  trench 
was  dug  about  it,  and 
twelve  pieces  of  ordnance 
were  mounted.  Within 
its  protection  fifty  houses, 
besides  a  church  and  store 
house,  were  built.  The 
carpenters  framed  a"  pryt- 
ty  pynnace"  of  thirty 
tons,  which  they  chris 
tened  the  Virginia.  There  is  no  earlier  record  of  ship-building  in  Maine. 

The  tenacity  of  the  English  character  has  become  proverbial.  Neverthe 
less,  the  opinion  is  hazarded  that  no  nation  so  ill  accommodates  itself  to  a  new 
country.  The  English  colonies  of  Virginia,  New  England,  and  Jamaica  are 
striking  examples  of  barrenness  of  resource  when  confronted  with  unforeseen 
privations.  The  Frenchman,  on  the  contrary,  possesses  in  an  eminent  degree 
the  capacity  to  adapt  himself  to  strange  scenes  and  unaccustomed  modes  of 
life.  Every  thing  is  made  to  contribute  to  his  wants.  Let  the  reader  con 
sult,  if  he  will,  the  campaign  of  the  Crimea,  where  thousands  of  English  sol 
diers  gave  way  to  hardships  unknown  in  the  French  camps.  The  elastic 
gayety  of  the  one  is  in  contrast  with  the  gloomy  despondency  of  the  other. 
The  Popham  colony  abandoned  a  well-matured,  ably-seconded  design  through 
dread  of  a  New  England  winter  and  through  homesickness.  Clearly  it  was 
not  of  the  stuff  to  found  a  State. 

The  previous  winter  'was  passed  by  the  French  at  their  new  settlement  of 


COTTON   MATHER. 


PEMAQUID  POINT.  95 

Port  Royal,  commenced  within  two  years.  The  seasons  of  1605  and  of  1606 
were  extremely  rigorous.  The  colony  of  De  Monts  went  through  the  first 
in  rude  cabins,  hastily  constructed,  on  the  island  of  St.  Croix.  The  next 
autumn  the  settlement  was  transferred  to  Port  Royal.  Winter  found  them 
domiciled  in  their  new  quarters  under  no  better  roofs  than  they  had  quitted. 
Though  their  leader,  Du  Guast,  had  left  them,  they  were  animated  by  an  irre 
pressible  spirit  of  fun,  altogether  French.  They  made  roads  through  the 
forest,  or  joined  with  the  Indians  in  hunting-parties,  managing  these  native 
Americans  with  an  address  that  won  their  confidence  and  good  help. 


ANCIENT   PEMAQUID. 

frinally,  at  the  suggestion  of  Champlain,  in  order  to  keep  up  an  unflagging 
good-fellowship,  and  to  render  themselves  free  of  all  anxiety  on  the  subject  of 
provisions,  the  ever-famous  "L'Ordre  de  Bon  Temps"  was  inaugurated.  It 
is  deserving  of  remembrance  along  with  the  coterie  of  the  Knights  of  the 
Round  Table. 

Once  in  fifteen  days  each  member  of  the  order  officiated  as  maitre  cfhotel 
of  De  Poutrincourt's  table.  It  was  his  care  on  that  day  that  his  comrades 
should  be  well  and  honorably  entertained  ;  and  although,  as  the  old  chronicler 
quaintly  says, "  our  gourmands  often  reminded  us  that  we  were  not  in  the 
Rue  aux  Ours  at  Paris,  yet  so  well  was  the  rule  observed  that  we  ordinarily 
made  as  good  cheer  as  we  should  have  known  how  to  do  in  the  Rue  aux 
Ours,  and  at  less  cost." 

There  was  not  a  fellow  of  the  order  who,  two  days  before  his  turn  came, 
did  not  absent  himself  until  he  could  return  with  some  delicacy  to  add  to 
their  ordinary  fare.  They  had  always  fish  or  flesh  at  breakfast,  and  were 
never  without  one  or  both  at  the  repasts  of  noon  and  evening.  It  became 
their  great  festival. 

The  steward,  or  maitre  (Vhotel,  having  caused  all  things  to  be  made  ready, 
marched  with  his  napkin  on  his  shoulder,  his  staff  of  office  in  his  hand,  and 
the  collar  of  the  order,  that  we  are  told  was  worth  more  than  four  French 
crowns,  about  his  neck.  Behind  him  walked  the  brothers  of  the  order,  each 
one  bearing  his  plate.  In  the  evening,  after  giving  thanks  to  God,  the  host 


96 


THE   NEW  ENGLAND   COAST. 


of  the  day  resigned  the  collar  to  his  successor,  each  pledging  the  other  in  a 
glass  of  wine. 

On  such  occasions  they  had  always  twenty  or  thirty  savages — men,  wom 
en,  and  children — looking  on.  To  these  they  gave  bread  from  the  table ;  but 
when,  as  was  often  the  case,  the  sagamores — those  fierce,  intractable  barba 
rians — presented  themselves,  they  were,  says  Lescarbot,  "  at  table  eating  and 
drinking  like  us,  and  we  right  glad  to  see  them,  as,  on  the  contrary,  their  ab 
sence  would  have  made  us  sorry." 

At  Pemaquid  we  enter  the  domain  of  Samoset,  that  chivalric  New  En- 
glander  whom  historians  delight  to  honor.  He  was  a  sagamore  without 
guile.  Chronologically  speaking,  he  should  first  appear  at  Plymouth,  in 
the  act  of  offering  to  those  doubting  Pilgrims  the  right  hand  of  fellowship. 
He  told  them  he  was  sagamore  of  Morattigon,  distant  from  Plymouth  "  a 

daye's  sayle  with  a  great 
wind,  and  five  dayes  by 
land."  In  1623  he  ex 
tended  a  kindly  recep 
tion  to  Christopher  Lev- 
ett,  to  whom  he  proffered 
a  friendship,  to  continue 
until  the  Great  Spirit  car 
ried  them  to  his  wigwam. 
All  the  old  writers  speak 
well  of  Samoset,  whom 
we  call  a  savage.1' 

I  next  visited  the  lit 
tle  point  of  land  on  which 
are  the  ruins  of  old  Fort 
Frederick.  Little  diffi 
culty  is  experienced  in 
retracing  the  exterior 
and  interior  lines  of  a 
fortress  designed  as  the 
strongest  bulwark  of  En 
glish  power  in  New  En 
gland.  It  was  built  upon  a  green  slope,  above  a  rocky  shore,  commanding 
the  approach  from  the  sea ;  but  was  itself  dominated  by  the  heights  of  the 
western  shore  of  John's  River,  a  circumstance  that  did  not  escape  the  notice 
of  D'Iberville  in  1696.  At  the  south-east  angle  of  the  work  is  a  high  rock, 


CHARLEVOIX. 


1  Samoset,  in  1625,  sold  Pemaquid  to  John  Brown.  His  sign-manual  was  a  bended  bow,  with 
an  arrow  fitted  to  the  string.  The  deed  to  Brown  also  fixes  the  residence,  at  Pemaquid,  of  Abra 
ham  Shurt,  agent  of  Elbridge  and  Aldworth,  in  the  year  1626. 


PEMAQUID  POINT.  97 

overgrown  with  a  tangle  of  climbing  vines  and  shrubs.  This  rock  formed  a 
gart  of  the  old  magazine,  and  is  now  the  conspicuous  feature  of  the  ruined 
fortress.  A  projecting  spur  of  the  opposite  shore  wras  called  "  the  Barbican." 

The  importance  of  Pemaquid  as  a  check  to  French  aggression  was  very 
great.  It  covered  the  approaches  to  the  Kennebec,  the  Sheepscot,  Damaris- 
cotta,  and  Pemaquid  rivers.  It  was  also,  being  at  their  doors,  a  standing  men 
ace  against  the  Indian  allies  of  the  French,  with  a  garrison  ready  to  launch 
upon  their  villages,  or  intercept  the  advance  of  war  parties  toward  the  New 
England  settlements.  Its  presence  exasperated  the  Abenaquis,  on  whose  ter 
ritory  it  was,  beyond  measure :  the  French  found  them  ever  ready  to  second 
projects  for  its  destruction. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  remoteness  of  Pemaquid  rendered  it  impracticable 
to  relieve  it  when  once  invested  by  an  enemy.  Only  a  few  feeble  settlements 
skirted  the  sea-coast  between  it  and  Casco  Bay,  so  the  same  causes  combined 
to  render  it  both  weak  and  formidable.  Old  Pentagoe't,  which  the  reader 
knows  for  Castine,  and  Pemaquid,  were  the  mailed  hands  of  each  nationality, 
always  clenched  ready  to  strike. 

The  fort  erected  at  Pemaquid  in  1677,  by  Governor  Andros,  was  a  wooden 
redoubt  mounting  two  guns,  with  an  outwork  having  two  bastions,  in  each 
of  which  were  two  great  guns,  and  another  at  the  gate.1  This  work  was 
named  Fort  Charles.  It  was  captured  and  destroyed  by  the  Indians  in  1689. 

Sir  William  Phips,  under  instructions  from  Whitehall,  built  a  new  fort  at 
Pemaquid  in  1692,  which  he  called  WTilliam  Henry.  Captains  Wing  and  Ban 
croft  were  the  engineers,  the  work  being  completed  by  Captain  March.2  The 
English  believed  it  impregnable.  Mather,  who  says  it  was  the  finest  that 
had  been  seen  in  those  parts  of  America,  has  a  significant  allusion  to  the  ar 
chitect  of  a  fortress  in  Poland  whose  eyes  were  put  out  lest  he  should  build 
another  such.  From  this  vantage-ground  the  English,  for  the  fifth  time,  ob 
tained  possession  of  Acadia, 

In  the  same  year  D'Iberville  made  a  demonstration  against  it  with  two 
French  frigates,  but  finding  an  English  vessel  anchored  under  the  walls,  aban 
doned  his  design,  to  the  chagrin  of  a  large  band  of  auxiliary  warriors  who 
had  assembled  under  Villebon,  and  who  now  vented  their  displeasure  by 
stamping  upon  the  ground. 

The  reduction  of  Fort  William  Henry  was  part  of  a  general  scheme  to 

1  "New  York  Colonial  Documents,"  vol.  iii.,  p.  25G.     Some  primitive  defensive  works  had  ex 
isted  as  early  as  1630,  rifled  in  1632  by  the  freebooter,  pixy  Bull. 

2  It  was  of  stone ;  a  quadrangle  seven  hundred  and  thirty-seven  feet  in  compass  without  the 
outer  walls,  one  hundred  and  eight  feet  square  within  the  inner  ones  ;  pierced  with  embrasures  for 
twenty-eight  cannons,  and  mounting  fourteen,  six  being  eighteen-pounders.    The  south  wall  front 
ing  the  sea  was  twenty-two  feet  high,  and  six  feet  thick  at  the  ports.     The  great  flanker,  or  round 
tower,  at  the  west  end  of  the  line  was  twenty -nine  feet  high.     It  stood  about  a  score  of  rods  from 
high-water  mark. — MATHER,  vol.  ii.,  p.  537. 

7 


08 


THE  NEW  ENGLAND  COAST. 


FRENCH  FRIGATE,  SEVENTEENTH  CENTURY. 


overrun  and  destroy  the 
English  settlements  as 
far  as  the  Piscataqua. 
The  English  were  fore 
warned.  John  Nelson, 
of  Boston,  whose  biog 
raphy  is  worth  the  writ 
ing,  was  then  a  prisoner 
at  Quebec.  Madocawan- 
do  was  also  there,  in 
consultation  with  Count 
Frontenac.  The  Abe- 
naqui  chief,  dissatisfied 
with  his  presents,  gave 
open  expression  of  his 
disgust  at  the  nio-crard- 

O  SO 

liness  of  his  white  ally. 
Nelson  was  well  ac 
quainted  with  the  Indian 

He  cajoled  the  chief  into  talking  of  his  projects,  and  as  soon  as 
they  were  in  his  possession  acted  like  a  man  of  decision.  He  bribed  two 
Frenchmen  —  Arnaud  du  Vignon  and  Francis  Albert  —  to  carry  the  intelli 
gence  to  Boston.  On  their  return  to  Canada  both  were  shot,  and  Nelson  was 
sent  to  France,  where  he  became  for  five  years  an  inmate  of  the  Bastile. 

The  life  of  John  Nelson  contains  all  the  requisites  of  romance.  Although 
an  Episcopalian,  he  put  himself  at  the  head  of  the  revolution  against  the  tyr 
anny  of  Andros.  As  a  prisoner,  he  risked  his  own  life  to  acquaint  his  country 
men  with  the  dangers  that  menaced  them ;  and  it  is  said  he  was  even  carried 
to  the  place  of  execution  along  with  his  detected  messengers.  The  French 
called  him  "le  plus  audacieux  et  le  plus  acharne,"  in  the  design  of  conquering 
Canada.  Released  from  the  Bastile  on  his  parole,  after  visiting  England  he 
returned  to  France  to  fulfill  its  conditions,  although  forbidden  to  do  so  by 
King  William.  A  man  of  address,  courage,  and  high  sense  of  honor  was 
this  John  Nelson. 

In  1696,  a  second  and  more  successful  expedition  was  conducted  against 
Pemaquid.  In  August,  D'Iberville1  and  Bonaventure  sailed  with  the  royal 
order  to  attack  and  reduce  it.  They  called  at  Pentagoet,  receiving  there  a 
re-enforcement  of  two  hundred  Indians,  who  embarked  in  their  canoes,  led  by 
St.  Castin.  On  the  13th  the  expedition  appeared  before  the  place,  and  the 
next  day  it  was  invested. 


tongue. 


1  "  D'Iberville,  monseigneur,  est  un  tres  sage  gallon,  entreprenant  et  qui  scait  ce  qu'il  fait." — 
M.  DENONVJLLE. 


PEMAQUID  POINT. 


99 


HUTCHINSON. 


Fort  William  Henry  was  then  commanded  by  Captain  Pascho  Chubb,  with 
a  garrison  of  about  a  hundred  men.  Fifteen  pieces  of  artillery  were  in  posi 
tion.  The  French  expected  an  obstinate  resistance,  as  the  place  was  well  able 
to  withstand  a  siege. 

Chubb,  on  being  summoned,  returned  a  defiant  answer.  D'Iberville  then 
began  to  erect  his  batteries.  The  account  of 
Charlevoix  states  that  the  French  got  posses 
sion  of  ten  or  twelve  stone  houses,  forming  a 
street  leading  from  the  village  square  to  the 
fort.  They  then  intrenched  themselves,  partly 
at  the  cellar -door  of  the  house  next  the  fort, 
nnd  partly  behind  a  rock  on  the  sea-shore.  A 
second  demand  made  by  St.  Castin,  accompa 
nied  by  the  threat  that  if  the  place  were  assault 
ed  the  garrison  might  expect  no  quarter,  de 
cided  the  valiant  Chubb,  after  a  feeble  and  in 
glorious  defense,  to  surrender.  The  gates  were 
opened  to  the  besiegers. 

On  finding  an  Indian  in  irons  in  the  fortress,, 
Castin's  warriors  began  a  massacre  of  the  prisoners,  which  was  arrested  by 
their  removal,  at  command  of  D'Iberville,  to  an  island,  where  they  were  pro 
tected  by  a  strong  guard  from  further  violence.  The  name  of  William  Henry 
has  been  synonymous  with  disaster  to  colonial  strongholds.  The  massacre 
of  1757  at  Lake  George,  forever  infamous,  obscures  with  blood  the  fair  fame 
of  Montcalm.  The  novelist  Cooper,  iji  making  it  the  groundwork  of  his 
"Mohicans,"  has  not  overstated  the  horrors  of  the-  tragedy  enacted  by  the 
placid  St.  Sacrament. 

Two  days  were  occupied  by  the  French  in  the  destruction  of  Pemaquid 
fort.  They  then  set  sail  for  St.  John's  River,  narrowly  escaping  capture  by  a 
fleet  sent  from  Boston  in  pursuit.  The  French,  who  had  before  claimed  to  the 
Kennebec,  subsequently  established  their  boundary  of  Acadia  at  St.  George's 
River. 

On  the  beach,  below  where  the  martello  tower  had  stood,  I  discovered 
many  fragments  of  bricks  among  the  rock  debris.  Some  of  these  were  as  large 
as  were  commonly  used  in  the  hearths  of  our  most  ancient  houses.  The  arch 
by  which  the  tower  was  perhaps  supported  remained  nearly  intact,  though 
completely  concealed  by  a  thicket  formed  of  interweaving  shrubs.  Some 
have  conjectured  it  to  have  been  a  hiding-place  of  smugglers.  Fragments 
of  shot  and  shell  have  likewise  been  picked  up  among  the  rubbish  of  the  old 
fortress.  Not  far  from  the  spot  is  a  grave-yard,  in  which  time  and  neglect 
have  done  their  work. 

It  has  been  attempted  to  show  that  a  large  and  populous  settlement  ex 
isted  from  a  very  early  time  at  Pemaquid,  with  paved  streets  and  some  of 


100  THE  NEW  ENGLAND   COAST. 

the  belongings  of  a  permanent  population.  Within  a  few  years  excavations 
have  been  made,  exhibiting  the  remains  of  pavement  of  beach-pebble  at  some 
distance  below  the  surface  of  the  ground. 

It  is  not  doubted  that  a  small  plantation  was  maintained  here  antecedent 
to  the  settlement  in  Massachusetts  Bay,  but  it  as  certainly  lacks  confirmation 
that  it  had  assumed  either  the  proportions  or  outward  appearance  of  a  well 
and  regularly  built  town  at  any  time  during  the  seventeenth  century.  If  it 
were  true,  as  Sullivan  states,  that  in  1630  there  were,  exclusive  of  fishermen, 
eighty-four  families  about  Sheepscot,  Pemaquid,  and  St.  George's,  it  also  be 
comes  important  to  know  by  what  means  these  settlements  were  depopulated 
previous  to  the  Indian  wars. 

The  commissioners  of  Charles  II.,  sent  over  in  1665,  reported  that  upon  the 
rivers  Kennebec,  Sheepscot,  and  Pemaquid  were  three  plantations,  the  largest 
containing  not  more  than  thirty  houses,  inhabited,  say  they,  "  by  the  worst 
of  men."  The  commissioners  gave  impartial  testimony  here,  for  they  were 
trying  to  dispossess  Massachusetts  of  the  government  she  had  assumed  over 
Maine  since  1652.  They  wrote  further,  that  neither  Kittery,  York,  Wells, 
Scarborough,  nor  Falmouth  had  more  than  thirty  houses,  and  those  mean  ones. 
This  was  the  entirety  of  the  grand  old  Pine-tree  State  two  centuries  ago. 

Colonel  Homer  had  recommended,  about  1699,  the  fortifying  anew  of  Pem 
aquid,  and  the  building  of  supporting  works  at  the  next  point  of  land,  and  on 
John's  Island.  Nothing,  however,  appears  to  have  been  done  until  the  ar 
rival  of  Colonel  David  Dunbar,  in  1730,  to  resume  possession  of  the  Sagada- 
hoc  territory  in  the  name  of  the  crown. 

Dunbar  repaired  the  old  works,  giving  them  the  name  of  Fort  Frederick. 
At  Pemaquid  Point  he  laid  out  the  plan  of  a  city  which  he  divided  into  lots, 
inviting  settlers  to  repopulate  the  country.  Old  grants  and  titles  were  con 
sidered  extinct.  His  possession  at  Pemaquid  conflicting  with  the  Muscongus 
patent  was  revoked  through  the  efforts  of  Samuel  Waldo.  The  garrison  was 
replaced  by  Massachusetts  troops,  and  the  so-called  Sagadahoc  territory  an 
nexed  to  the  County  of  York.1 

When  in  the  neighborhood,  the  visitor  will  feel  a  desire  to  inspect  the  ex 
tensive  shell  heaps  of  the  Damariscotta,  about  a  mile  above  the  town  of  New 
castle.  They  occur  on  a  jutting  point  of  land,  in  such  masses  as  to  resemble 
low  chalk  cliffs  of  guano  deposits.  The  shells  are  of  the  oyster,  now  no  long 
er  native  in  New  England  waters,  but  once  abundant,  as  these  and  other  re 
mains  testify.  The  highest  point  of  the  bank  is  twenty-five  feet  above  the 
river.  The  deposits  are  rather  more  than  a  hundred  rods  in  length,  with  a 

1  As  it  is  inconsistent  with  the  purpose  and  limits  of  these  chapters  to  give  the  detail  of  char 
ters,  patents,  and  titles  by  which  Pemaquid  has  acquired  much  historical  prominence,  the  reader 
may,  in  addition  to  authorities  named  in  the  text,  consult  Thornton's  "Ancient  Pemaquid,  "vol.  v. 
"Maine  Historical  Collections;"  Johnston's  "Bristol,  Bremen,  and  Pemaquid  ;"  Hough's  "Pem 
aquid  Papers,"  etc. 


PEMAQUID  POINT!     ,{>,  \  ,101 

variable  width  of  from  eighty  to  a  hundred  rods.  The  shells  lie  in  regular 
layers,  bleached  by  sun  and  weather.  Among  the  many  naturalists  who 
have  visited  them  may  be  named  Dr.  Charles  T.  Jackson,1  and  Professor  Chad- 
bourne,  of  Bowdoin  College.  Some  animal  remains  found  among  the  shells 
were  submitted -to  Agassiz,  who  concurred  in  the  received  opinion  that  the 
shells  were  heaped  up  by  men. 

From  point  to  point  excavations  have  been  made  with  the  expectation  of 
finding  the  Indian  implements  which  have  occasionally  rewarded  such  inves 
tigations.  Williamson  mentions  a  tradition  that  human  skeletons  had  been 
discovered  in  these  beds.  The  bones  of  animals  and  of  birds  have  been  found 
in  them.  Situated  in  the  immediate  vicinity  of  the  shell  deposits  is  a  kiln  for 
converting  the  shells  into  lime,  which  is  produced  of  as  good  quality  as  that 
obtained  from  limestone  rock. 

In  walking  along  the  beach  at  low  tide,  I  had  an  excellent  opportunity 
of  surveying  these  remains.  A  considerable  growth  of  trees  had  sprung 
from  the  soil  collected  above  them,  the  roots  of  some  having  penetrated 
completely  through  the  superincumbent  shells  to  the  earth  beneath.  From 
an  observation  of  several  cavities  near  the  surface  and  in  the  sides  of  the 
oyster  banks,  the  shells,  in  some  instances,  appear  to  have  been  subjected  to 
fire.  The  entire  stratum  was  in  a  state  of  decomposition  that  sufficiently  at 
tests  the  work  of  years.  Even  those  shells  lying  nearest  the  surface  in  most 
cases  crumbled  in  the  hands,  while  at  a  greater  depth  the  closely- packed 
valves  were  little  else  than  a  heap  of  lime. 

The  shell  heaps  are  of  common  occurrence  all  along  the  coast.  The  read 
er  knows  them  for  the  feeding-places  of  the  hordes  preceding  European  civil 
ization.  Here  they  regaled  themselves  on  a  delicacy  that  disappeared  when 
they  vanished  from  the  land.  The  Indians  not  only  satisfied  present  hun 
ger,  but  dried  the  oyster  for  winter  consumption.  'Their  summer  camps  were 
pitched  in  the  neighborhood  of  well-known  oyster  deposits,  the  squaws  being 
occupied  in  gathering  shell-fish,  while  the  men  were  engaged  in  fishing  or  in 
hunting. 

Josselyn  mentions  the  long-shelled  oysters  peculiar  to  these  deposits.  He 
notes  them  of  nine  inches  in  length  from  the  "joint  to  the  toe,  that  were  to 
be  cut  in  three  pieces  before  they  could  be  eaten."  Wood  professes  to  have 
seen  them  of  a  foot  in  length.  I  found  many  of  the  shells  here  of  six  inches 
in  length.  Winthrop  alludes  to  the  oyster  banks  of  Mystic  River,  Massachu 
setts,  that  impeded  its  navigation.  During  recent  dredgings  here  oyster- 
shells  of  six  to  eight  inches  in  length  were  frequently  brought  to  the  surface. 
The  problem  of  the  oyster's  disappearance  is  yet  to  be  solved.3 

1  While  making  his  geological  survey  of  Maine. 

3  Williamson  mentions  the  heaps  on  the  eastern  bank,  not  so  high  as  on  the  western,  extend 
ing  back  twenty  rods  from  the  river,  and  rendering  the  land  useless.  The  shell  heaps  of  Georgia 
and  Florida  are  more  extensive  than  any  in  New  England. 


MONHEGAN  ISLAND. 


CHAPTER  VII. 

MONHEGAN    ISLAND. 

"  From  gray  sea-fog,  from  icy  drift, 

From  peril  and  from  pain, 
The  home-bound  fisher  greets  thy  lights, 
Oh  hundred-harbored  Maine!" 

WHITTIER. 

most  famous  island  you  can  find  on  the  New  England  map  is  Monhe- 
gan  Island.  To  it  the  voyages  of  Weyraouth,  of  Popham,  and  of  Smith 
converge.  The  latter  has  put  it  down  as  one  of  the  landmarks  of  our  coast. 
Rosier  calls  it  an  excellent  landfall.  It  is  undoubtedly  Monhegan  that  is 
seen  on  the  oldest  charts  of  New  England.  Champlain,  with  the  same  apt 
ness  and  originality  recognized  in  Mount  Desert  and  Isle  au  Haut,  names  it 
La  Tortue.  Take  from  the  shelf  Bradford,  Winthrop,  Prince,  or  Hubbard, 
and  you  will  find  this  island  to  figure  conspicuously  in  their  pages.  Brad 
ford  says  starving  Plymouth  was  succored  from  Monhegan  as  early  as  1622. 
The  Boston  colonists  of  1630  were  boarded  when  entering  Salem  by  a  Plym 
outh  man,  going  about  his  business  at  Pemaquid.  English  fishing  ships  hov 
ered  about  the  island  for  a  dozen  years  before  the  Mayflower  swung  to  her 
anchorage  in  the  "ice-rimmed"  bay.  The  embers  of  some  camp-fire  were  al 
ways  smouldering  there. 

Sailing  once  from  Boston  on  a  Penobscot  steamboat,  a  few  hours  brought 
us  up  with  Cape  Ann.  I  asked  the  pilot  for  what  land  he  now  steered. 

"  M'nhiggin." 

In  returning,  the  boat  came  down  through  the  Mussel  Ridge  Channel  like 
a  race-horse  over  a  well-beaten  course.  We  rounded  Monhegan  again,  and 
then  steered  by  the  compass.  Monhegan  is  still  a  landmark. 

A  wintry  passage  is  not  always  to  be  commended,  especially  when  the 


MONHEGAN  ISLAND. 


103 


Atlantic  gets  un 
ruly.  Leaving  the 
wharf  on  one  well- 
remembered  occa 
sion,  we  steamed 
down  the  bay  in 
smooth  water  at 
fourteen  miles  an 
hour.  All  on  board 
were  in  possession 
of  their  customa 
ry  equipoise.  Soon 
the  gong  sounded 
a  noisy  summons 
to  supper.  We 
descended.  The 
cabin  tables  were 
quickly  occupied 
by  a  merry  com 
pany  of  both  sex 
es.  There  was  a 
clatter  of  plates 
and  sharp  click 
ing  of  knives  and 
forks ;  waiters  ran 
hither  and  thither; 
the  buzz  of  con 
versation  and  rip 
ple  of  suppressed 


THATCHEK'S  ISLAND  LIGHT  AND  FOG  SIGNALS,  CAPE  ANN. 


laughter  began  to  diffuse  themselves  with  the  good  cheer,  w*hen,  suddenly, 
the  boat,  mounting  a  sea,  fell  off  into  the  trough  with  a  measured  movement 
that  thrilled  every  victim  of  old  Neptune  to  the  marrow. 

It  would  be  difficult  to  conceive  a  more  instantaneous  metamorphosis  than 
that  which  now  took  place.  Maidens  who  had  been  chatting  or  wickedly  flirt 
ing,  laid  down  their  knives  and  forks  and  turned  pale  as  their  napkins.  Youths 
that  were  all  smiles  and  attention  to  some  adorable  companion  suddenly  be 
haved  as  if  oblivious  of  her  presence.  Another  plunge  of  the  boat !  My  vis- 
d-vis,  an  old  gourmand,  had  intrenched  himself  behind  a  rampart  of  delicacies. 
He  stops  short  in  the  act  of  carving  a  fowl,  and  reels  to  the  cabin  stairs.  Soon 
he  has  many  followers.  Wives  are  separated  from  husbands,  the  lover  de 
serts  his  mistress.  A  heavier  sea  lifts  the  bow,  and  goes  rolling  with  gath 
ered  volume  astern,  accompanied  by  the  crash  of  crockery  and  trembling  of 
the  chandeliers.  Tiiat  did  the  business.  The  commercial  traveler  who  told 


104  THE  NEW  ENGLAND  COAST. 

me  he  was  never  sea-sick  laid  down  the  morsel  he  was  in  the  act  of  convey 
ing  to  his  mouth.  He  tried  to  look  unconcerned  as  he  staggered  from  the 
table,  but  it  was  a  wretched  failure.  Two  waiters,  each  bearing  a  well-laden 
tray,  were  sent  sliding  down  the  incline  to  the  leeward  side  of  the  cabin, 
where,  coming  in  crashing  collision,  they  finally  deposited  their  burdens  in 
a  berth  in  which  some  unfortunate  was  already  reposing.  All  except  a 
handful  of  well -seasoned  voyagers  sought  the  upper  cabins,  where  they  re 
mained  pale  as  statues,  and  as  silent.  The  rows  of  deserted  seats,  unused 
plates,  the  joints  sent  away  untouched,  presented  a  melancholy  evidence  of 
the  triumph  of  matter  over  mind. 

Early  in  the  morning  we  made  out  Monhegan,  as  I  have  no  doubt  it  was 
descried  from  the  mast-head  of  the  Archangel,  Weymouth's  ship,  two  hun 
dred  and  seventy  years  ago.  The  sea  was  shrouded  in  vapor,  so  that  we  saw 
the  island  long  before  the  main-land  was  visible.  Sea-faring  people  call  it 
high  land  for  this  part  of  the  world. 

Near  the  westward  shore  of  the  southern  half  of  this  remarkable  island  is 
a  little  islet,  called  Marianas,  which  forms  the  only  harbor  it  can  boast.  Cap 
tain  Smith  says,  "Between  Monahiggon  and  Monariis  is  a  small  harbour,  where 
we  rid."  The  entrance  is  considered  practicable  only  from  the  south,  though 
the  captain  of  a  coasting  vessel  pointed  out  where  he  had  run  his  vessel 
through  the  ragged  reefs  that  shelter  the  northern  end,  and  saved  it.  It  was 
a  desperate  strait,  he  said,  and  the  by-standers  shook  their  heads,  in  thinking 
on  the  peril  of  the  attempt.1 

The  inhabitants  are  hospitable,  and  many  even  well  to  do.  Their  harbor 
is  providentially  situated  for  vessels  that  are  forced  on  the  coast  in  heavy 
gales,  and  are  able  to  reach  its  shelter.  At  such  times  exhausted  mariners 
are  sure  of  a  kind  reception,  every  house  opening  its  doors  to  relieve  their  dis 
tresses.  Having  all  the  requirements  of  snug  harboring,  excellent  rock  fishing, 
with  room  enough  for  extended  rambling  up  and  down,  the  island  must  one 
day  become  a  resort  as  famous  as  the  Isles  of  Shoals.  At  present  there  is  a 
peculiar  flavor  of  originality  and  freshness  about  the  people,  who  are  as  yet 
free  from  the  money-getting  aptitudes  of  the  recognized  watering-place. 

George  Weymouth  made  his  anchorage  under  Monhegan  on  the  18th  of 
May,  1805.  "It  appeared,"  says  Rosier,  "a  mean  high  land,  as  we  afterward 
found  it,  being  an  island  of  some  six  miles  in  compass,  but,  I  hope,  the  most 
fortunate  ever  yet  discovered.  About  twelve  o'clock  that  day,  we  came  to 

1  Monhegan  lies  nine  miles  south  of  the  George's  group,  twelve  south-east  from  Pemaquid,  and 
nine  west  of  Metinic.  It  contains  upward  of  one  thousand  acres  of  land.  According  to  William 
son,  it  had,  in  1832,  about  one  hundred  inhabitants,  twelve  or  fourteen  dwellings,  and  a  school- 
house.  The  able-bodied  men  were  engaged  in  the  Bank  fishery ;  the  elders  and  boys  in  tending 
the  flocks  and  tilling  the  soil.  At  that  time  there  was  not  an  officer  of  any  kind  upon  the  island ; 
not  even  a  justice  of  the  peace.  The  people  governed  themselves  according  to  local  usage,  and 
were  strangers  to  taxation.  A  light-house  was  built  on  the  island  in  1824. 


MONHEGAN  ISLAND.  105 

an  anchor  on  the  north  side  of  this  island,  about  a  league  from  the  shore. 
About  two  o'clock  our  captain  with  twelve  men  rowed  in  his  ship-boat  to 
the  shore,  where  we  made  no  long  stay,  but  laded  our  boat  with  dry  wood 
of  old  trees  upon  the  shore  side,  and  returned  to  our  ship,  where  we  rode 
that  night."  *  *  * 

"  This  island  is  woody,  grown  with  fir,  birch,  oak,  and  beech,  as  far  as  we 
saw  along  the  shore ;  and  so  likely  to  be  within.  On  the  verge  grow  goose 
berries,  strawberries,  wild  pease,  and  wild  rose  -  bushes.  The  water  issued 
forth  down  the  cliffs  in  many  places;  and  much  fowl  of  divers  kinds  breeds 
upon  the  shore  and  rocks." 

The  main-land  possessed  greater  attraction  for  Weymouth.  Thinking  his 
anchorage  insecure,  he  brought  his  vessel  the  next  day  to  the  islands  "  more 
adjoining  to  the  main,  and  in  the  road  directly  with  the  mountains,  about 
three  leagues  from  the  island  where  he  had  first  anchored." 

I  read  this  description  while  standing  on  the  deck  of  the  Katalidin,  and 
found  it  to  answer  admirably  the  conditions  under  which  I  then  surveyed  the 
land.  We  were  near  enough  to  make  out  the  varied  features  of  a  long  line 
of  sea-coast  stretching  northward  for  many  a  mile.  There  were  St.  George's 
Islands,  three  leagues  distant,  and  more  adjoining  to  the  main.  And  there 
were  the  Camden  Mountains  in  the  distance.1 

Weymouth  landed  at  Pemaquid,  and  traded  with  the  Indians  there.  In 
order  to  impress  them  with  the  belief  that  he  and  his  comrades  were  super 
natural  beings,  he  caused  his  own  and  Hosier's  swords  to  be  touched  with  the 
loadstone,  and  then  with  the  blades  took  up  knives  and  needles,  much  mys 
tifying  the  simple  savages  with  his  jugglery.  It  took,  however,  six  whites 
to  capture  two  of  the  natives,  unarmed  and  thrown  off  their  guard  by  feigned 
friendship. 

But  one  compensation  can  be  found  for  Weymouth's  treachery  in  kidnap 
ing  five  Indians  here,  and  that  is  in  the  assertion  of  Sir  F.  Gorges  that  this 
circumstance  first  directed  his  attention  to  New  England  colonization.  At 
least  two  of  the  captive  Indians  found  their  way  back  again.  One  returned 
the  next  year;  another — Skitwarres — came  over  with  Popham.  A  strange 
tale  these  savages  must  have  told  of  their  adventures  beyond  seas.2 

Some  credence  has  been  given  to  the  report  of  the  existence  of  a  rock 
inscription  on  Monhegan  Island,  supposed  by  some  to  be  a  reminiscence 

1  A  good  many  arguments  may  be  found  in  the  "Collections  of  the  Maine  Historical  Society" 
as  to  whether  Weymouth  ascended  the  Penobscot  or  the  Kennebec.     All  assume  Monhegan  to 
have  been  the  first  island  seen.     This  being  conceded,  the  landmarks  given  in  the  text  follow, 
without  reasonable  ground  for  controversy. 

2  In  1607  Weymouth  was  granted  a  pension  of  three  shillings  and  fourpence  per  diem.     Smith 
was  at  Monhegan  in  1614,  Captain  Dermer  in  1619,  and  some  mutineers  from  Rocroft's  ship  had 
passed  the  winter  of  1618-'19  there.     The  existence  of  a  small  plantation  is  ascertained  in  1622. 
In  1626  the  island  was  sold  to  Giles  Elbridge  and  Robert  Aldworth  for  fifty  pounds. 


106  THE  NEW  ENGLAND  COAST. 

of  the  Northmen.  The  Society  of  Northern  Antiquaries  of  Copenhagen  has 
reproduced  it  in  their  printed  proceedings.  The  best  informed  American 
antiquaries  do  not  believe  it  to  possess  any  archaeological  significance.  I 
also  heard  of  another  of  the  "devil's  foot-prints"  on  Mananas,  but  did  not 
see  it. 

Between  Monhegan  and  Pemaquid  Point  was  the  scene  of  the  sea-fight 
between  the  Enterprise  and  Boxer.  Some  of  the  particulars  I  shall  relate  I 
had  of  eye-witnesses  of  the  battle. 

In  September,  1814,  the  American  brig  Enterprise  quitted  Portsmouth 
roads.  She  had  seen  service  in  the  wars  wTith  the  French  Directory  and 
with  Algiers.  She  had  been  rebuilt  in  1811,  and  had  already  gained  the 
name  of  a  lucky  vessel.  Her  cruising-ground  was  along  the  Maine  coast, 
where  a  sharp  lookout  was  to  be  kept  for  privateers  coming  out  of  the  ene 
my's  ports.  In  times  past  her  commanders  were  such  men  as  Sterrett,  Hull, 
Decatur,  and  Blakely,  in  whom  was  no  more  flinching  than  in  the  mainmast. 

Lieutenant  Burrows,  who  now  took  her  to  sea,  had  been  first  officer  of  a 
merchant  ship  and  a  prisoner  to  the  enemy.  As  soon  as  exchanged  he  was 
given  the  command  of  the  Enterprise.  He  was  a  good  seaman,  bound  up  in 
his  profession,  and  the  darling  of  the  common  sailors.  Taciturn  and  misan 
thropic  among  equals,  he  liked  to  disguise  himself  in  a  pea-jacket  and  visit 
the  low  haunts  of  his  shipmates.  It  was  believed  he  would  be  killed  sooner 
than  surrender. 

The  Boxer  had  been  fitted  out  at  St.  Johns  with  a  view  of  meeting  and 
fighting  the  Enterprise.  Every  care  that  experience  and  seamanship  could 
suggest  had  been  bestowed  upon  her  equipment.  She  was,  moreover,  a  new 
and  strong  vessel.  In  armament  and  crews  the  two  vessels  were  about  equal, 
the  inferiority,  if  any,  being  on  the  side  of  the  American.  The  two  brigs  were, 
in  fact,  as  equally  matched  as  could  well  be.  They  were  prepared,  rubbed 
down,  and  polished  off,  like  pugilists  by  their  respective  trainers.  They  were 
in  quest  of  each  other.  The  conquered,  however,  attributed  their  defeat  to 
every  cause  but  the  true  one,  namely,  that  of  being  beaten  in  a  fair  fight  on 
their  favorite  element. 

The  Boxer,  after  worrying  the  fishermen,  and  keeping  the  sea-coast  vil 
lages  in  continual  alarm,  dropped  anchor  in  Pemaquid  Bay  on  Saturday,  Sep 
tember  4th,  1814.  There  was  then  a  small  militia  guard  in  old  Fort  Freder 
ick.  The  inhabitants  of  Pemaquid  Point,  fearing  an  attack,  withdrew  into 
the  woods,  where  they  heard  at  evening  the  music  played  on  board  the  ene 
my's  cruiser. 

The  next  morning,  a  peaceful  Sabbath,  the  lookout  of  the  Boxer  made  out 
the  Enterprise  coming  down  from  the  westward  with  a  fair  wind.  In  an  in 
stant  the  Briton's  decks  were  alive  with  men.  Sails  were  let  fall  and  sheet 
ed  home  with  marvelous  quickness,  and  the  Boxer,  with  every  rag  of  canvas 
spread,  stood  out  of  the  bay.  From  her  anchorage  to  the  westward  of  John's 


MONHEGAN  ISLAND. 


107 


Island,  the  Boxer,  as  she  got  under  way,  threw  several  shot  over  the  island 
into  the  fort  by  way  of  farewell.  Both  vessels  bore  off  the  land  about  three 
miles,  when  they  stripped  to  fighting  canvas.  The  American,  being  to  wind 
ward,  had  the  weather-gage,  and,  after  taking  a  good  look  at  her  antagonist, 
brought  her  to  action  at  twenty  minutes  past  three  o'clock  in  the  afternoon. 
Anxious  spectators  crowded  the  shores ;  but  after  the  first  broadsides,  for  the 
forty  minutes  the  action  continued,  nothing  could  be  seen  except  the  flashes 
of  the  guns;  both  vessels  were  enveloped  in  a  cloud.  At  length  the  firing 
slackened,  and  it  was  seen  the  Boxer's  maintop-mast  had  been  shot  away. 
The  battle  was  decided. 

This  combat,  which  proved  fatal  to  both  commanders,  was,  for  the  time  it 
lasted,  desperately  contested.  The  Enterprise  returned  to  Portland,  with  the 
Boxer  in  company,  on  the  7th.  The  bodies  of  Captain  Samuel  Blythe,  late 
commander  of  the  English  brig,  and  of  Lieutenant  William  Burrows,  of  the 
Enterprise,  were  brought  on  shore  draped  with  the  flags  each  had  so  bravely 
defended.  The  same  honors  were  paid  the  remains  of  each,  and  they  were  in 
terred  side  by  side  in  the  cemetery  at  Portland.  Blythe  had  been  one  of 
poor  Lawrence's  pall-bearers. 


GRAVES   OF  BUKROWS   AND   BLYTHE,  PORTLAND. 

This  was  the  first  success  that  had  befallen  the  American  navy  since  the 
loss  of  the  Chesapeake.  It  revived,  in  a  measure,  the  confidence  that  disaster 
had  shaken.  The  Boxer  went  into  action  with  her  colors  nailed  to  the  mast— 
a  useless  bravado  that  no  doubt  cost  many  lives.  Her  ensign  is  now  among 
the  trophies  of  the  Naval  Academy  at  Annapolis,  while  that  of  the  Enter 
prise  has  but  lately  been  reclaimed  from  among  the  forgotten  things  of  the 


108 


THE  NEW  ENGLAND  COAST. 


past,  to  array  its  tattered  folds  beside  the  flags  of  the  Bonhomme  Richard 
and  of  Fort  M'Henry.1 

.  Among  the  recollections  of  his  "  Lost  Youth,"  the  author  of  "  Evangeline," 
a  native  of  Portland,  tells  us: 

"I  remember  the  sea-fight  far  away, 

How  it  thundered  o'er  the  tide! 
And  the  dead  captains,  as  they  lay 
In  their  graves  o'erlooking  the  tranquil  bay, 

Where  they  in  battle  died." 

1  This  flag  inspired  the  nation  ally  ric,  "The  Star-spangled  Banner." 


BURROWS' s  MEDAL. 


GORGE,  BALD  HEAD   CLIFF. 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

FROM  WELLS  TO  OLD  YORK. 

"A  shipman  was  there,  wormed  far  by  west; 
For  aught  I  wot,  he  was  of  Dartemouth." 

CHAUCER. 

hot,  slumberous  morning  in  August  I  found  myself  in  the  town  of 
Wells.  I  was  traveling,  as  New  England  ought 'to  be  traversed  by  ev 
ery  young  man  of  average  health  and  active  habits,  on  foot,  and  at  leisure, 
along  the  beautiful  road  to  Old  York.  Now  Wells,  as  Victor  Hugo  says  of 
a  village  in  Brittany,  is  not  a  town,  but  a  street,  stretching  for  five  or  six 
miles  along  the  shore,  and  everywhere  commanding  an  extensive  and  un 
broken  ocean  view. 


110  THE  NEW  ENGLAND  COAST. 

The  place  itself,  though  bristling  with  history,  has  been  stripped  of  its 
antiques,  and  is  in  appearance  the  counterpart  of  a  score  of  neat,  thrifty  vil 
lages  of  my  acquaintance.  I  paused  for  a  moment  at  the  site  of  the  Storer 
garrison,  in  which  Captain  Converse  made  so  manful  a  defense  when  Fron- 
tenac,  in  1692,  let  slip  his  French  and  Indians  on  our  border  settlements.1 
Some  fragments  of  the  timbers  of  the  garrison  are  preserved  in  the  vicinity, 
one  of  which  I  saw  among  the  collections  of  a  village  antiquary.  In  the  an 
nals  of  Wells  the  names  of  John  Wheelwright  and  of  George  Burroughs  oc 
cur,  the  former  celebrated  as  the  founder  of  Exeter,  the  latter  a  victim  of  the 
witchcraft  horror  of  '92. 

John  Wheelwright,  the  classmate  and  friend  of  Cromwell,  fills  a  large 
space  in  the  early  history  of  the  Bay  Colony.  A  fugitive,  like  John  Cotton, 
from  the  persecutions  of  Laud,  he  came  to  Boston  in  1636,  and  became  the 
pastor  of  a  church  at  Braintree,  then  forming  part  of  Boston.  He  was  the 
brother-in-law  of  the  famous  Ann  Hutchinson,  who  was  near  creating  a  revo 
lution  in  Winthrop's  government,2  and  shared  her  Antinomian  opinions.  For 
this  he  was  banished,  and  became  the  founder  of  Exeter  in  1638.  In  1643, 
Massachusetts  having  claimed  jurisdiction  over  that  town,  Wheelwright  re 
moved  to  Wells,  where  he  remained  two  years.  Becoming  reconciled  to  the 
Massachusetts  government,  he  removed  to  Hampton,  was  in  England  in  1657, 
returning  to  New  England  in  1660.  He  became  pastor  of  the  church  in  Salis 
bury,  and  died  there  in  1679;  but  the  place  of  his  burial,  Allen  says,  is  not 
known.  He  was  the  oldest  minister  in  the  colony  at  the  time  of  his  death, 
and  a  man  of  pronounced  character.  The  settlement  of  the  island  of  Rhode 
Island  occurred  through  the  removal  of  William  Coddington  and  others  at 
the  same  time,  and  for  the  same  reasons  that  caused  the  expulsion  of  Wheel 
wright  from  Boston,  as  Roger  Williams  had  been  expelled  from  Salem  seven 
years  before. 

"Wheelwright's  Deed"  has  been  the  subject  of  a  long  and  animated  con 
troversy  among  antiquaries ;  some,  like  Mr.  Savage,  pronouncing  it  a  forgery 
because  it  is  dated  in  1629,  the  year  before  the  settlement  of  Boston.  This 
deed  was  a  conveyance  from  the  Indian  sagamores  to  Wheelwright  of  the 
land  on  which  stands  the  flourishing  town  of  Exeter;  and  although  copies  of 
it  have  been  recorded  in  several  places,  the  original  long  ago  disappeared. 
Cotton  Mather,  who  saw  it,  testifies  to  its  appearance  of  antiquity,  and  the 
advocates  of  its  validity  do  not  appear  as  yet  to  have  the  worst  of  the  argu 
ment.3 

1  Colonel  Storer  kept  up  the  stockades  and  one  or  more  of  the  flankarts  until  after  the  year 
1760,  as  a  memorial  rather  than  a  defense. 

2  This  relationship  is  disputed  by  Mr.  Joseph  L.  Chester,  the  eminent  antiquary.     Winthrop,  it 
would  seem,  ought  to  have  known  ;  Eliot  and  Allen  repeat  the  authority,  the  latter  giving  the  full 
name  of  Mary  Hutchinson. 

3  Both  sides  have  been  ably  presented  by  Dr.  N.  Bouton  and  Hon.  Charles  II.  Bell. 


FROM  WELLS  TO  OLD  YORK.  HI 

George  Burroughs,  who  fell  fighting  against  terrorism  on  Gallows  Hill — 
a  single  spot  may  claim  in  New  England  the  terrible  distinction  of  this  name 
— was,  if  tradition  says  truly,  apprehended  by  officers  of  the  Bloody  Council 
at  the  church  door,  as  he  was  leaving  it  after  divine  service.  A  little  dark 
man,  and  an  athlete,  whose  muscular  strength  was  turned  against  him  to  fa 
tal  account.  An  Indian,  at  Falmouth,  had  held  out  a  heavy  fowling-piece  at 
arms -length  by  simply  thrusting  his  finger  in  at  the  muzzle.  Poor  Bur 
roughs,  who  would  not  stand  by  and  see  an  Englishman  outdone  by  a -red 
skin,  repeated  the  feat  on  the  spot,  and  this  was  the  most  ruinous  piece  of 
evidence  brought  forth  at  his  trial.  A  man  could  not  be  strong  then,  or  the 
devil  was  in  it. 

The  road  was  good,  and  the  way  plain.  As  the  shores  are  for  some  miles 
intersected  by  creeks  intrenched  behind  sandy  downs,  the  route  follows  a 
level  shelf  along  the  high  land.  There  are  pleasant  strips  of  beach,  where 
the  sea  breaks  noiselessly  when  the  wind  is  off  shore,  but  where  it  comes 
thundering  in  when  driven  before  a  north-east  gale.  Now  and  then  a  vessel 
is  embayed  here  in  thick  weather,  or,  failing  to  make  due  allowance  for  the 
strong  drift  to  the  westward,  is  set  bodily  on  these  sands,  as  the  fishermen 
say,  "all  standing."  While  I  was  in  the  neighborhood  no  less  than  three 
came  ashore  within  a  few  hours  of  each  other.  The  first,  a  timber  vessel, 
missing  her  course  a  little,  went  on  the  beach ;  but  at  the  next  tide,  by  carry 
ing  an  anchor  into  deep  water  and  kedging,  she  was  floated  again.  Another 
luckless  craft  struck  on  the  rocks  within  half  a  mile  of  the  first,  and  became 
a  wreck,  the  crew  owing  their  lives  to  a  smooth  sea.  The  third,  a  Bank 
fisherman,  was-  left  by  the  ebb  high  up  on  a  dangerous  reef,  with  a  hole  in 
her  bottom.  She  was  abandoned  to  the  underwriters,  and  sold  for  a  few  dol 
lars.  To  the  surprise  even  of  the  knowing  ones,  the  shrewd  Yankee  who 
bought  her  succeeded  at  low  tide  in  getting  some  empty  casks  into  her  hold, 
and  brought  her  into  port. 

Notwithstanding  these  sands  are  hard  and  firm  as  a  granite  floor,  they  are 
subject  to  shiftings  which  at  first  appear  almost  unaccountable.  Many  years 
ago,  while  sauntering  along  the  beach,  I  came  across  the  timbers  of  a  strand 
ed  vessel.  So  deeply  were  they  imbedded  in  the  sand,  that  they  had  the  ap 
pearance  rather  of  formidable  rows  of  teeth  belonging  to  some  antique  sea- 
monster  than  of  the  work  of  human  hands.  How  long  the  wreck  had  lain  there 
no  one  could  say ;  but  at  intervals  it  disappeared  beneath  the  sands,  to  come 
to  the  surface  again.  I  have  often  walked  over  the  spot  where  it  lay  buried 
out  of  sight ;  and  yet,  after  the  lapse  of  years,  there  it  was  again,  like  a  grave 
that  would  not  remain  closed. 

A  few  years  ago,  an  English  vessel,  the  Clotilde,  went  ashore  on  Wells 
Beach,  and  remained  there  high  and  dry  for  nearly  a  year.  She  was  deeply 
laden  with  railway  iron,  and,  after  being  relieved  of  her  cargo,  was  success 
fully  launched.  During  the  time  the  ship  lay  on  the  beacb,  she  became  so 


112 


THE  NEW  ENGLAND  COAST. 


OLD   WRECKS   ON   THE   BEACH. 


deeply  buried  in  the  sand  that  a  person  might  walk  on  board  without  diffi 
culty.  Ways  were  built  underneath  her,  and,  after  a  terrible  wrenching,  she 
was  got  afloat.  Heavy  objects,  such  as  kegs  of  lead  paint,  and  even  pigs  of 
iron,  have  been  exposed  by  the  action  of  the  waves,  after  having,  in  some  in 
stances,  been  twenty  years  under  the  surface.  I  have  picked  up  whole  bricks, 
lost  overboard  from  some  coaster,  that  have  come  ashore  with  their  edges 
smoothly  rounded  by  the  abrasion  of  the  sand  and  sea.  There  is  an  authen 
tic  account  of  the  re- appearance  of  a  wrecked  ship's  caboose  more  than  a 
hundred  and  seventy  years  after  her  loss  on  Cape  Cod.  After  a  heavy  east 
erly  gale,  the  beach  is  always  sprinkled  with  a  fine,  dark  gravel,  which  disap 
pears  again  with  a  few  days  of  ordinary  weather. 

Besides  being  the  inexhaustible  resource  of  summer  idlers,  the  beach  has 
its  practical  aspects.  The  sand,  fine,  white,  and  "  sharp,"  is  not  only  used  by 
builders — and  there  is  no  fear  of  exhausting  the  supply — but  is  hauled  away 
by  farmers  along  shore,  and  housed  in  their  barns  as  bedding  for  cattle,  or  to 
mix  with  heavy  soils.  The  sea-weed  and  kelp  that  comes  ashore  in  such  vast 
quantities  after  a  heavy  blow  is  carefully  harvested,  and  goes  to  enrich  the 
lands  with  its  lime  and  salt.  It  formerly  supplied  the  commercial  demand 
for  soda,  and  was  gathered  on  the  coasts  of  Ireland,  Scotland,  France,  and 
Spain  for  the  purpose.  It  is  the  varec  of  Brittany  and  Normandy,  the  blan- 
quette  of  Frontignan  and  Aigues-mortes,  and  the  salicor  of  Narbonne.  After 
being  dried,  it  was  reduced  to  ashes  in  rude  furnaces.  Iodine  is  also  the 
product  of  sea-weed.  You  may  sometimes  see  at  high-water  mark  winrows 
of  Irish  moss  (carrageen)  bleaching  in  the  sun,  though  for  my  blanc-mange  I 
give  the  preference  to  that  cast  up  on  the  shingle,  as  more  free  from  sand. 
This  plant  grows  only  on  the  farthest  ledges.  The  pebble  usually  heaped 
above  the  line  of  sand,  or  in  little  coves  among  the  ledges,  is  used  for  ballast, 
and  for  mending  roads  and  garden-walks.  Turning  to  the  sandy  waste  that 


FROM   WELLS  TO  OLD  YORK.  113 

skirts  the  beach,  I  seldom  fail  of  finding  the  beach-pea,  with  its  beautiful  blos 
soms  of  blue  and  purple.  In  spring  the  vine  is  edible,  and  has  been  long 
used  for  food  by  the  poorer  people. 

The  beach  is  much  frequented  after  a  storm  by  crows  in  quest  of  a  dinner 
alfresco.  They  haunt  it  as  persistently  as  do  the  wreckers,  and  seldom  fail 
of  finding  a  stranded  fish,  a  crab,  or  a  mussel.  They  are  the  self-appointed 
scavengers  of  the  strand,  removing  much  of  the  offal  cast  up  by  the  sea.  The 
crow  is  a  crafty  fellow,  and  knows  a  thing  or  two,  as  I  have  had  reason  to 
observe.  The  large  sea-rnussel  is  much  affected  by  him,  and  when  found  is 
at  once  pounced  upon.  Taking  it  in  his  talons,  the  crow  flies  to  the  nearest 
ledge  of  rocks,  and,  calculating  his  distance  with  mathematical  eye,  lets  his 
prize  fall.  Of  course  the  mussel  is  dashed  in  pieces,  and  the  crow  proceeds 
to  make  a  frugal  meal.  I  have  seen  this  operation  frequently  repeated,  and 
have  as  often  scared  the  bird  from  his  repast  to  convince  myself  of  his  suc 
cess. 

His  method  of  taking  the  clam  is  equally  ingenious.  He  walks  upon  the 
clam-bank  at  low  tide,  and  seizes  upon  the  first  unlucky  head  he  finds  pro 
truding  from  the  shell.  Then  ensues  a  series  of  laughable  efforts  on  the  crow's 

O  ^-> 

pan  to  rise  with  his  prey,  while  the  clam  tries  in  vain  to  draw  in  its  head. 
The  crow,  after  many  sharp  tugs  and  much  flapping  of  his  wings,  finally  se 
cures  the  clam,  and  disposes  of  him  as  he  would  of  a  mussel.  The  Indians, 
whose  chief  dependence  in  summer  was  upon  shell-fish,  complained  that  the 
English  swine  watched  the  receding  tide  as  their  women  were  accustomed  to 
do,  feeding  on  the  clams  they  turned  up  with  their  snouts. 

In  the  olden  time  the  beach  was  the  high-road  over  which  the  settlers 
traveled  when,  as  was  long  the  £ase,  it  was  their  only  way  of  safety.  It  was 
often  beset  with  danger;  so  much  so  that  tradition  says  the  mail  from  Ports 
mouth  to  Wells  was  for  seven  years  brought  by  a  dog,  the  pouch  being  at 
tached  to  his  collar.  This  faithful  messenger  was  at  last  killed  by  the  sav 
ages.  For  miles  around  this  bay  the  long-abandoned  King's  Highway  may 
be  traced  where  it  hugged  the  verge  of  the  shore,  climbing  the  roughest 
ledges,  or  crossing  from  one  beach  to  another  by  a  strip  of  shingle.  Here 
and  there  an  old  cellar  remains  to  identify  its  course  and  tell  of  the  stern 
lives  those  pioneers  led. 

When  the  tide  is  out,  I  also  keep  at  low- water  mark,  scrambling  over 
ledges,  or  delving  among  the  crannies  for  specimens.  It  does  not  take  long 
to  fill  your  pockets  with  many-hued  pebbles  of  quartz,  jasper,  or  porphyry 
that,  in  going  a  few  rods  farther,  you  are  sure  to  reject  for  others  more  brill 
iant.  At  full  sea  I  walk  along  the  shore,  where,  from  between  those  envi 
ous  little  stone  walls,  I  can  still  survey  the  Unchanged. 

After  all  that  has  been  printed  since  the  "Tractatus  Petri  Hispani,"  it  is 
a  question  whether  there  are  not  as  many  popular  superstitions  to-day  among 
plain  New  England  country-folk  as  at  any  time  since  the  settlement  of  the 

8 


114  THE  NEW  ENGLAND   COAST. 

country.  The  belief  in  the  virtue  of  a  horseshoe  is  unabated.  At  York  I 
saw  one  nailed  to  the  end  of  a  coaster's  bowsprit.  To  spill  salt,  break  a  look 
ing-glass,  or  dream  of  a  white  horse,  are  still  regarded  as  of  sinister  augury. 
A  tooth-pick  made  from  a  splinter  of  a  tree  that  has  been  struck  by  lightning- 
is  a  sure  preventive  of  the  toothache.  Exceeding  all  these,  however,  is  the 
generally  accepted  superstition  that  has  led  to  the  practice  of  bathing  on 
Saco  Beach  on  the  26th  of  June  in  each  year.  On  this  day,  it  is  religiously 
believed  that  the  waters,  like  Slloain  of  old,  have  miraculous  power  of  healing 
all  diseases  with  which  humanity  is  afflicted.  The  people  flock  to  the  beach 
from  all  the  country  round,  in  every  description  of  vehicle,  to  dip  in  the  en 
chanted  tide.  A  similar  belief  existed  with  regard  to  a  medicinal  spring  on 
the  River  Dee,  in  Scotland,  called  Januarich  Wells,  one  author  gravely  assert 
ing  that  so  great  was  the  faith  in  its  efficacy  that  those  afflicted  with  broken 
legs  have  gone  there  for  restoration  of  the  limb. 

I  have  found  it  always  impracticable  to  argue  with  the  pilgrims  as  to  the 
grounds  of  their  belief.  They  are  ready  to  recount  any  number  of  wonder 
ful  cures  at  too  great  a  distance  for  my  investigation  to  reach,  and  may  not, 
therefore,  be  gainsaid.  It  is  a  custom. 

All  this  time  I  was  nearing  Ogtmquit,  a  little  fishing  village  spliced  to 
the  outskirts  of  Wells,  being  itself  within  the  limits  of  York.  At  my  right 
I  caught  a  glimpse  of  the  green  bulk  of  Mount  Agamenticus,  and  on  the  oth 
er  hand,  almost  at  my  elbow,  was  the  sea.  So  we  marched  on,  as  it  were,  arm 
in  arm ;  for  I  was  beginning  to  feel  pretty  well  acquainted  with  a  companion 
that  kept  thus  constantly  at  my  side.  This  morning  it  was  Prussian  blue, 
which  it  presently  put  off  for  a  warmer  hue.  There  it  lay,  sunning  itself, 
cool,  silent,  impenetrable,  like  a  great  blue  turquoise  on  the  bare  bosom  of 
Mother  Earth,  nor  looking  as  if  a  little  ruffling  of  its  surface  could  put  it  in 
such  a  towering  passion. 

My  sachel  always  contains  a  luncheon,  a  book,  and  a  telescopic' drinking- 
cup.  At  noon,  having  left  eight  miles  of  road  behind  me,  I  sought  the  shel 
ter  of  a  tree  by  the  roadside,  and  found  my  appetite  by  no  means  impaired 
by  the  jaunt.  At  such  a  time  I  read,  like  Rousseau,  while  eating,  in  default 
of  a  tete-a-tete.  I  alternately  devour  a  page  and  a  piece.  While  under  my 
tree,  a  cow  came  to  partake  of  the  shade,  of  which  there  was  enough  for  both 
of  us.  She  gazed  at  me  with  a  cairn,  but,  as  I  conceived  also,  a  puzzled  look, 
ruminating  meanwhile,  or  stretching  out  her  head  and  snuffing  the  air  within 
a  foot  of  my  hand.  Perhaps  she  was  wondering  whether  I  had  two  stomachs, 
and  a  tail  to  brush  off  the  flies. 

From  the  village  of  Ogunquit  there  are  two  roads.  I  chose  the  one  which 
kept  the  shore,  in  order  to  take  in  my  way  Bald  Head  Cliff,  a  natural  c-urios- 
ity  well  worth  going  some  distance  to  see.  The  road  so  winds  across  the 
rocky  waste  on  which  the  village  is  in  part  built  that  in  some  places  you  al 
most  double  on  your  own  footsteps.  Occasionally  a  narrow  lane  issues  from 


FROM   WELLS  TO   OLD  YORK.  H5 

among  the  ledges,  tumbling  rather  than  descending  to  some  little  cove,  where 
you  catch  a  glimpse  of  brown-roofed  cottages  and  a  fishing-boat  or  two,  snug 
ly  moored.  The  inhabitants  say  there  is  not  enough  soil  in  Ogunquit  with 
which  to  repair  the  roads,  a  statement  no  one  who  tries  it  with  a  vehicle  will 
be  inclined  to  dispute.  Literally  the  houses  are  built  upon  rocks,  incrusted 
with  yellow  lichens  in  room  of  grass.  Wherever  a  dip  occurs  through  which 
a,  little  patch  of  blue  sea  peeps  out,  a  house  is  posted,  and  I  saw  a  few  care 
fully-tended  garden  spots  among  hollows  of  the  rock  in  which  a  handful  of 
mould  had  accumulated.  The  wintry  aspect  is  little  short  of  desolation : 
in  storms,  from  its  elevation  and  exposure,  the  place  receives  the  full  shock 
of  the  tempest,  as  you  may  see  by  the  weather-stained  appearance  of  the 
houses. 

A  native  directed  me  by  a  short  cut  "  how  to  take  another  ox-bow  out  of 
the  road,"  and  in  a  few  minutes  I  stood  on  the  brow  of  the  cliff.  What  a 
sight !  The  eye  spans  twenty  miles  of  sea  horizon.  Wells,  with  its  white 
meeting-houses  and  shore  hotels,  was  behind  me.  Far  up  in  the  bight  of  the 
bay  Great  Hill  headland,  Hart's  and  Gooch's  beaches — the  latter  mere  rib 
bons  of  white  sand — gleamed  in  the  sunlight.  Kennebunkport  and  its  ship 
yards  lay  beneath  yonder  smoky  cloud,  with  Cape  Porpoise  Light  beyond. 
There,  below  me,  looking  as  if  it  had  floated  off  from  the  main,  was  the  barren 
rock  called  the  Nubble,  the  farthest  land  in  this  direction,  with  Cape  Neddock 
harbor  in  full  view.  All  the  rest  wras  ocean.  The  mackerel  fleet  that  I  had 
seen  all  day — fifty  sail,  sixty,  yes,  and  more — was  off  Boon  Island,  with  their 
jibs  down,  the  solitary  gray  shaft  of  the  light -house  standing  grimly  up 
among  the  white  sails,  a  mile-stone  of  the  sea. 

There  are  very  few  who  would  be  able  to  approach  the  farthest  edge  of 
the  precipice  called  the  Pulpit,  and  bend  over  its  sheer  face  without  a  quick 
ening  of  the  pulse.  As  in  all  these  grand  displays  in  which  Nature  puts  forth 
her  powers,  you  shrink  in  proportion  as  she  exalts  herself.  For  the  time  being, 
at  least,  the  conceit  is  taken  out  of  you,  and  you  are  thoroughly  put  doxvn. 
Here  is  a  perpendicular  wall  of  rock  ninety  feet  in  height  (as  well  as  I  could 
estimate  it),  and  about  a  hundred  and  fifty  in  length,  with  a  greater  than  Ni 
agara  raging  at  its  foot — a  rock  buttress,  with  its  foundations  deeply  root 
ed  in  the  earth,  breasting  off  the  Atlantic ;  and  the  massy  fragments  lying 
splintered  at  its  base,  or  heaved  loosely  about  the  summit,  told  of  many  a 
desperate  wrestling-match,  with  a  constant  gain  for  the  old  athlete.  The 
sea  is  gnawing  its  way  into  the  coast  slowly,  but  as  surely  as  the  cataract 
is  approaching  the  lake;  and  the  cliff,  though  it  may  for  a  thousand  years 
oppose  this  terrible  battering,  will  at  last,  like  some  sea  fortress,  crumble 
before  it. 

Underneath  the  cliff  is  one  of  those  curious  basins  hollowed  out  almost 
with  the  regularity  of  art,  in  which  a  vessel  of  large  tonnage  might  be  float 
ed.  On  the  farther  side  of  this  basin,  the  ledges,  though  jagged  and  wave- 


116  THE   NEW  ENGLAND   COAST. 

worn,  descend  with  regular  incline,  making  a  sort  of  platform.  On  the  top 
of  the  cliff  the  rock  debris  and  line  of  soil  show  unmistakably  that  in  severe 
gales  the  sea  leaps  to  this  great  height,  drenching  the  summit  with  salt  spray. 
At  such  a  time  the  sea  must  be  superb,  though  awful ;  for  I  doubt  if  a  human 
being  could  stand  erect  before  such  a  storm. 

The  exposed  side  of  Bald  Head  Cliff  faces  south  of  east,  and  is  the  result 
of  ages  of  wear  and  tear.  The  sea  undermines  it,  assails  it  in  front  and  from 
all  sides.  Here  are  dikes,  as  at  Star  Island,  in  which  the  trap-rock  has  given 
way  to  the  continual  pounding,  thus  affording  a  vantage-ground  for  the  great 
lifting  power  of  the  waves.  The  strata  of  rock  lie  in  perpendicular  masses, 
welded  together  as  if  by  fire,  and  injected  with  crystal  quartz  seams,  knotted 
like  veins  in  a  Titan's  forehead.  Blocks  of  granite  weighing  many  tons, 
honey-combed  by  the  action  of  the  water,  are  loosely  piled  where  the  cliff 
overhangs  the  waves;  and  you  may  descend  by  regular  steps  to  the  verge 
of  the  abyss.  The  time  to  inspect  this  curiosity  is  at  low  tide,  when,  if  there 
be  sea  enough,  the  waves  come  grandly  in,  whelming  the  shaggy  rocks,  down 
whose  sides  a  hundred  miniature  cascades  pour  as  the  waters  recede. 

Beneath  the  cliff  the  incoming  tides  have  worn  the  trap-rock  to  glassy 
smoothness,  rendering  it  difficult  to  walk  about  when  they  are  wetted  by  the 
spray.  From  this  stand-point  it  is  apparent  the  wall  that  rises  before  you  is 
the  remaining  side  of  one  of  those  chasms  which  the  sea  has  driven  right  into 
the  heart  of  the  crag.  The  other  face  is  what  lies  scattered  about  on  all  sides 
in  picturesque  ruin.  If  the  view  from  the  summit  was  invigorating,  the  sit 
uation  below  was  far  from  inspiring.  It  needed  all  the  cheerful  light  and 
warmth  the  afternoon  sun  could  give  to  brighten  up  that  bleak  and  rugged 
shore.  The  spot  had  for  me  a  certain  sombre  fascination ;  for  it  was  here, 
more  than  thirty  years  ago,  the  Isidore,  a  brand-new  vessel,  and  only  a  few 
hours  from  port,  was  lost  with  every  soul  on  board.  Often  have  I  heard  the 
tale  of  that  winter's  night  from  relatives  of  the  ill-fated  ship's  crew;  nnd  as  I 
stood  here  within  their  tomb,  realizing  the  hopelessness  of  human  effort  when 
opposed  to  those  merciless  crags,  I  thought  of  Schiller's  lines: 

"  Oh  many  a  bark  to  that  breast  grappled  fast 

Has  gone  clown  to  the  fearful  and  fathomless  grave ; 
Again,  crashed  together  the  keel  and  the  mast, 

To  be  seen  tossed  aloft  in  the  glee  of  the  wave! 
Like  the  growth  of  a  storm,  ever  louder  and  clearer, 
Grows  the  roar  of  the  gulf  vising  nearer  and  nearer." 

Over  there,  where  the  smoke  lies  above  the  tree-tops,  is  Kennebunkport,1 
where  they  build  as  staunch  vessels  as  float  on  any  sea.  The  village  and  its 
ship-yards  lie  along  the  banks  of  a  little  river,  or,  more  properly  speaking,  an 
arm  of  the  sea.  It  is  a  queer  old  place,  or  rather  was,  before  it  became  trans- 

1  Once,  and  much  better,  Arundel,  from  the  Earl  of  Arundel. 


FROM  WELLS  TO  OLD  YORK.  117 

lated  into  a  summer  resort ;  but  now  silk  jostles  homespun,  and  for  three 
months  in  the  year  it  is  invaded  by  an  army  of  pleasure-seekers,  who  ransack 
its  secret  places,  and  after  taking  their  fill  of  sea  and  shore,  flee  before  the 
first  frosts  of  autumn.  The  town  then  hibernates. 

The  Isidore  was  built  a  few  miles  up  river,  where  the  stream  is  so  narrow 
and  crooked  that  you  can  scarce  conceive  "how  ships  of  any  size  could  be  suc 
cessfully  launched.  At  a  point  below  the  "Landing"  the  banks  are  so  near 
together  as  to  admit  of  a  lock  to  retain  the  full  tide  when  a  launch  took  place. 
A  big  ship  usually  brings  up  in  the  soft  ooze  of  the  opposite  bank,  but  is  got 
off  at  the  next  flood  by  the  help  of  a  few  yoke  of  oxen  and  a  strong  hawser. 
Besides  its  ship-building,  Kennebunkport  once  boasted  a  considerable  com 
merce  with  the  West  Indies,  and  the  foundations  of  many  snug  fortunes  have 
been  laid  in  rum  and  sugar.  The  decaying  wharves  and  empty  warehouses 
now  tell  their  own  story. 

I  was  one  afternoon  at  the  humble  cottage  of  a  less  ancient,  though  more 
coherent,  mariner  than  Coleridge's,  who,  after  forty  years  battling  with  storms, 
was  now  laid  up  like  an  old  hulk  that  will  never  more  be  fit  for  sea.  Togeth 
er  we  rehearsed  the  first  and  last  voyage  of  the  Isidore. 

"  Thirty  years  ago  come  Thanksgiving,"  said  Ben,  in  a  voice  pitched  be 
low  his  usual  key,  "  the  Isidore  lay  at  the  wharf  with  her  topsails  loose,  wait 
ing  for  a  slant  of  wind  to  put  to  sea.  She  was  named  for  the  builder's  daugh 
ter,  a  mighty  pretty  gal,  sir;  but  the  boys  didn't  like  the  name  because  it 
sounded  outlandish-like,  and  would  have  rather  had  an  out-an'-out  Yankee 
one  any  day  of  the  week." 

"There  is,  then,"  I  suggested,  "  something  in  a  name  at  sea  as  well  as 
ashore  ?" 

"Lor'  bless  your  dear  soul,  I've  seen  them  barkeys  as  could  almost  ship  a 

crew  for  nothing,  they  had  such  spanking,  saucy  names.     Captain  R was 

as  good  a  sailor  as  ever  stepped,  but  dretful  profane.  He  was  as  brave  as  a 
lion,  and  had  rescued  the  crew  of  an  Englishman  from  certain  death  while 
drifting  a  helpless  wreck  before  a  gale.  No  boat  could  live  in  the  sea  that 

was  running;  but  Captain  R bore  down  for  the  sinking  ship,  and  passed 

it  so  close  that  the  crew  saved  themselves  by  jumping  aboard  of  him.  Seven 
or  eight  times  he  stood  for  that  wreck,  tintil  all  but  one  man  were  saved.  He 
had  the  ill-luck  afterward  to  get  a  cotton  ship  ashore  at  Three  Acres,  near 
where  the  Isidore  was  lost,  and  said,  as  I've  heard,  '  he  hoped  the  next  ves 
sel  that  went  ashore  he  should  be  under  her  keel.'  He  had  his  wish,  most 
likely. 

"  The  Isidore  was  light,  just  on  top  of  water,  and  never  ought  to  have 
gone  to  sea  in  that  plight ;  but  she  had  been  a  good  while  wind-bound,  and 
all  hands  began  to  be  impatient  to  be  off.  Her  crew,  fifteen  as  likely  lads  as 
ever  reefed  a  topsail,  all  belonged  in  the  neighborhood.  One  of 'em  didn't 
feel  noways  right  about  the  v'y'ge,  and  couldn't  make  up  his  mind  to  go  un- 


118  THE  NEW  ENGLAND  COAST. 

til  the  ship  was  over  the  bar,  when  he  had  to  be  set  aboard  in  a  wherry. 
Another  dreamed  three  nights  running  the  same  dream,  and  every  blessed 
time  he  saw  the  Isidore  strike  on  a  lee  shore  with  the  sea  a-flying  as  high  as 
the  maintop.  Every  time  he  wol^e  up  in  a  cold  sweat,  with  the  cries  of  his 
shipmates  ringing  in  his  ears  as  plain  as  we  hear  the  rote  on  Gooch's  Beach 
this  minute.  So,  when  the  Isidore-set  her  colors  and  dropped  down  the  river, 
Joe,  though  he  had  signed  the  articles  and  got  the  advance,  took  to  the 
woods.  Most  every  body  thought  it  scandalous  for  the  ship  to  unmoor,  but 

Captain  R said  he  would  go  to  sea  if  he  went  to  h — 1  the  next  minute. 

Dretful  profane  man,  sir — dretful. 

"The  weather  warn't  exactly  foul  weather,  and  the  sea  was  smooth 
enough,  but  all  the  air  there  was  was  dead  ahead,  and  it  looked  dirty  to 
wind'ard.  The  ship  slipped  out  through  the  piers,  and  stood  off  to  the  east- 
'ard  on  the  port  tack.  I  recollect  she  was  so  nigh  the  shore  that  I  could  see 
who  was  at  the  wheel.  She  didn't  work  handy,  for  all  the  ropes  were  new 
and  full  of  turns,  and  I  knew  they  were  having  it  lively  aboard  of  her.  Early 
in  the  afternoon  it  began  to  snow,  first  lightly,  then  thick  and  fast,  and  the 
wind  began  to  freshen  up  considerable.  The  ship  made  one  or  two  tacks  to 
work  out  of  the  bay,  but  about  four  o'clock  it  closed  in  thick,  and  we  lost 
her. 

"  I  saw  the  Nubble  all  night  long,  for  the  snow  come  in  gusts ;  but  it 
blowed  fresh  from  the  no'th-east ;  fresh"  he  repeated,  raising  his  eyes  to  mine 
and  shaking  his  gray  head  by  way  of  emphasis.  "  I  was  afeard  the  ship  was 
in  the  bay,  and  couldn't  sleep,  but  went  to  the  door  and  looked  out  between 
whiles." 

It  was,  indeed,  as  I  have  heard,  a  dreadful  night,  and  many  a  vigil  was 
kept  by  wife,  mother,  and  sweetheart.  At  day-break  the  snow  lay  heaped  in 
drifts  in  the  village  streets  and  garden  areas.  It  was  not  long  before  a  mes 
senger  came  riding  in  at  full  speed  with  the  news  that  the  shores  of  Ogun- 
quit  were  fringed  with  the  wreck  of  a  large  vessel,  and  that  not  one  of  her 
crew  was  left  to  tell  the  tale.  The  word  passed  from  house  to  house.  Si 
lence  and  gloom  reigned  within  the  snow-beleaguered  village. 

It  was  supposed  the  ship  struck  about  midnight,  as  the  Ogunquit  fisher 
men  heard  in  their  cabins  cries  and  groans  at  this  hour  above  the  noise  of 
the  tempest.  They  were  powerless  to  aid;  no  boat  could  have  been  launch 
ed  in  that  sea.  If  any  lights  were  shown  on  board  the  ship,  they  were  not 
seen ;  neither  were  any  guns  heard.  The  ropes,  stiffened  with  ice,  would  not 
run  through  the  sheaves,  which  rendered  the  working  of  the  ship  difficult, 
if  not  impossible.  No  doubt  the  doomed  vessel  drove  helplessly  to  her  de 
struction,  the  frozen  sails  hanging  idly  to  the  yards,  while  her  exhausted 
crew  miserably  perished  with  the  lights  of  their  homes  before  their  eyes. 

All  the  morning  aftQr  the  wreck  the  people  along  shore  were  searching 
amidst  the  tangled  masses  of  drift  and  sea-wrack  the  storm  had  cast  up  for 


FROM   WELLS  TO   OLD  YORK. 


119 


THE  MORNING  ROUND. 


the  remains  of  the  crew.     They  were  too  much  mangled  for  recognition,  ex 
cept  in  a  single  instance.     Captain  G ,  a  passenger,  had  by  accident  put 

on  his  red-flannel  drawers  the  wrong  side  out  the  morning  the  Isidore  sailed, 
observing  to  his  wife 
that,  as  it  was  good 
luck,  he  would  not 
change  them.  One 
leg  was  found  en 
cased  in  the  drawers. 
The  mutilated  frag 
ments  were  brought 
to  the  village,  and 
buried  in  a  common 
grave. 

Some  of  the  old 
people  at  the  Port 
declare  to  this  day 
that  on  the  night  of 
the  wreck  they  heard 
shrieks  as  plainly  as  ever  issued  from  human  throats;  and  you  could  not  ar 
gue  it  out  of  them,  though  the  spot  where  the  Isidore's  anchors  were  found 

is  ten  miles  away.     As  for  Joe  B ,  the  runaway,  he  can  not  refrain  from 

shedding  tears  when  the  Isidore  is  mentioned. 

"  But,  Ben,  do  you  believe  in  dreams  ?"  I  asked,  with  my  hand  on  the  latch. 

"  B'leeve  in  dreams  !"  he  repeated  ;  "  why,  Joe's  a  living  man  ;  but  where's 
his  mates?" 

Perhaps  they 

"Died  as  men  should  die,  clinging  round  their  lonely  wreck, 
Their  winding-sheet  the  sky,  and  their  sepulchre  the  deck ; 

And  the  steersman  held  the  helm  till  his  breath 
Grew  faint  and  fainter  still ; 
There  was  one  short  fatal  thrill, 
Then  he  sank  into  the  chill 
Arms  of  Death." 

I  turned  away  from  the  spot  with  the  old  sailor's  words  in  mind :  "A 
wicked  place  where  she  struck;  and  the  sea  drove  right  on.  A  ragged  place, 
sir — ragged." 

Leaving  the  cliff,  I  struck  across  the  pastures  to  the  road,  making  no  far 
ther  halt  except  to  gather  a  few  huckleberries  that  grew  on  high  bushes  by 
the  roadside.  The  fruit  is  large,  either  black  or  blue,  with  an  agreeable 
though  different  flavor  from  any  of  the  low- bushed  varieties.  The  .local 
name  for  the  shrub  is  "  bilberry."  It  frequently  grows  higher  than  a  man's 
head,  and  a  single  one  will  often  yield  nearly  a  quart. 


120  THE  NEW  ENGLAND  COAST. 

It  was  a  year  of  plenty,  and  I  had  seen  the  pickers  busy  in  the  berry 
pastures  as  I  passed  by.  The  fruit,  being  for  the  time  a  sort  of  currency — 
not  quite  so  hard,  by-the-bye,  as  the  musket-bullets  of  the  colonists — is  re 
ceived  iu  barter  at  the  stores.  Whole  families  engage  in  the  harvest,  making 
fair  wages,  the  annual  yield  exceeding  in  value  that  of  the  corn  crop  of  the 
State.  Maine  grows  her  corn  on  the  Western  prairies,  and  pays  for  it  with 
canned  fish  and  berries. 

At  the  village  store  I  saw  a  woman  drive  up  with  a  bushel  of  huckle 
berries,  with  which  she  bought  enough  calico  for  a  gown,  half  a  pound  of 
tobacco,  and  some  knickknacks  for  the  children  at  home.  Affixed  in  a  con 
spicuous  place  to  the  wall  was  the  motto,  "  Quick  sales  and  small  profits." 
Half  an  hour  was  spent  in  beating  the  shop-keeper  down  a  cent  in  the  yard, 
and  another  quarter  of  an  hour  to  induce  him  to  "  heave  in,"  as  she  said,  a 
spool  of  cotton.  The  man,  after  stoutly  contesting  the  claim,  finally  yielded 
both  points.  "  The  woman,"  thought  I,  "  evidently  only  half  believes  in  your 
seductive  motto." 

All  along  the  road  I  had  met  women  and  children,  going  or  returning, 
with  pails  or  baskets.  One  man,  evidently  a  fast  picker,  had  filled  the  sleeves 
of  his  jacket  with  berries,  after  having  first  tied  them  at  the  wrists.  Anoth 
er,  who  vaulted  over  the  stone  wall  at  my  side,  when  asked  if  he  was  going 
to  try  the  huckleberries,  replied, 

"  Wa'al,  yes;  think  I'll  try  and  accumulate  a  few." 

Descending  the  last  hill  before  reaching  Cape  Neddock  Harbor,  I  had  a 
good  view  of  the  Nubble,  which  several  writers  have  believed  was  the  Savage 
Rock  of  Gosnold,  and  the  first  land  in  New  England  to  receive  an  English 
name.  The  reliable  accounts  of  the  early  voyagers  to  our  coasts  are  much 
too  vague  to  enable  later  historians  to  fix  the  points  where  they  made  the 
land  with  the  confidence  with  which  many  undertake  to  fix  them.  A  care 
ful  examination  of  these  accounts  justifies  the  opinion  that  Gosnold  made  his 
land-fall  off  Agamentieus,  and  first  dropped  anchor,  since  leaving  Falmouth, 
at  Cape  Ann.  The  latitude,  if  accurately  taken,  would  of  itself  put  the  ques 
tion  beyond  controversy;  but  as  the  methods  of  observing  the  exact  position 
of  a  ship  were  greatly  inferior  to  what  they  became  later  in  the  seventeenth 
century,  I  at  first  doubted,  and  was  then  constrained  to  admit,  that  the  reck 
oning  of  Gosnold,  Pring,  and  Champlain  ought  to  be  accepted  as  trustworthy. 
Gabriel  Archer,  who  was  with  Gosnold,  says,"They  held  themselves  by  compu 
tation  well  neere  the  latitude  of  43  degrees,"  or  a  little  northward  of  the  Isles 
of  Shoals.  John  Brereton,  also  of  Gosnold's  company,  says  they  fell  in  with  the 
coast  in  thick  weather,  and  first  made  land  with  the  lead.  By  all  accounts 
the  Concord,  Gosnold's  ship,  was  to  the  northward  of  Cape  Ann.  Land  was 
sighted  at  six  in  the  morning  of  the  14th  of  May,  1602,  and  Gosnold  stood 
"fair  along  by  the  shoi;e"  until  noon,  which  would  have  carried  him  across 
Ipswich  Bay,  even  if  the  Concord  were  a  dull  sailer.  In  1603  Martin  Pring 


FROM  WELLS  TO  OLD  YORK.  121 

sailed  over  nearly  the  same  track  as  Gosnold.  It  is  by  comparing  these  two 
voyages  that  Savage  Rock  appears  to  be  located  at  Cape  Ann. 

Pring,  says  Gorges,  observing  his  instructions  (to  keep  to  the  northward 
as  high  as  Cape  Breton),  arrived  safely  out  and  back,  bringing  with  him  "the 
most  exact  discovery  of  that  coast  that  ever  came  to  my  hands  since ;  and 
indeed  he  was  the  best  able  to  perform  it  of  any  I  met  withal  to  this  present." 
Pring's  relation  wrought  such  an  impression  on  Sir  F.  Gorges  and  Lord  Chief- 
justice  Popham  that,  notwithstanding  their  first  disasters,  they  resolved  on 
another  effort.  He  had  no  doubt  seen  and  talked  with  Gosnold  after  his  re 
turn  ;  perhaps  had  obtained  from  him  his  courses  after  he  fell  in  with  the 
coast. 

The  Speedwell,  Pring's  vessel,  also  made  land  in  forty-three  degrees.  It 
proved  to  be  a  multitude  of  small  islands.  Pring,  after  anchoring  under  the 
lee  of  the  largest,  coasted  the  main-land  with  his  boats.  The  narrative  con 
tinues  to  relate  that  they  "  came  to  the  mayne  in  43^,  and  ranged  to  south 
west,  in  which  course  we  found  several  inlets,  the  more  easterly  of  which 
was  barred  at  the  mouth.  Having  passed  over  the  bar,  we  ran  up  into  it  five 
miles.  Coming  out  and  sailing  south-west,  we  lighted  upon  two  other  inlets; 
the  fourth  and  most  westerly  was  best,  which  we  rowed  up  ten  or  twelve 
miles."  Between  forty-three  and  forty-three  and  a  half  degrees  are  the  Saco, 
then  barred  at  the  mouth,1  the  Mousam,  York,  and  the  Piscataqua,  the  "most 
westerly  and  best." 

"We  (meeting  with  no  sassafras)" — to  follow  the  narrative — "left  these 
places  and  shaped  our  course  for  Savage's  Rocks,  discovered  the  year  before 
by  Captain  Gosnold."  Savage  Rock,  then,  was  by  both  these  accounts 
(Archer  and  Pring)  to  the  southward  of  forty-three  degrees,  while  the  Nub 
ble,  or  rather  Agamenticus,  is  in  forty-three  degrees  sixteen  minutes. 

"  Departing  hence,  we  bare  into  that  great  gulf  which  Captain  Gosnold 
overshot  the  year  before."  This  could  be  no  other  than  Massachusetts  Bay, 
for  Gosnold,  according  to  Brereton,  after  leaving  Savage  Rock,  shaped  his 
course  southward  ("standing  off  southerly  into  the  sea")  the  rest  of  that 
day  and  night  (May  15th),  and  on  the  following  morning  found  himself  "em 
bayed  with  a  mighty  headland,"  which  was  Cape  Cod.  Pring,  on  the  con 
trary,  steered  into  the  bay,  "coasting,  and  finding  people  on  the  north  side 
thereof."  If  my  conjecture  be  correct,  he  was  the  first  English  mariner  in 
Boston  Bay. 

It  is  hardly  possible  that  a  navigator  falling  in  with  the  New  England 
coast  in  forty-three  or  forty-three  and  a  half  degrees,  and  steering  south-west, 
should  not  recognize  in  Cape  Ann  one  of  its  remarkable  features,  or  pass  it 
by  unperceived  in  the  ni^ht.  He  would  have  been  likely  to  find  Savage  Rock 
and  end  his  voyage  at  the  same  moment.  Champlain  and  Smith  are  both  in 

J  An  old  sea-chart  says,  "  Saco  River  bear  place  at  low  water." 


122  THE  NEW  ENGLAND  COAST. 

evidence.  The  former,  who  examined  the  coast  minutely  two  years  after 
Priug  (June,  1605),  has  delineated  "Cap  des  Isles"  on  his  map  of  1612, 
which  accompanied  the  first  edition  of  his  voyages.  The  account  he  gives 
of  its  position  is  as  clear  as  that  of  Archer  is  obscure.  Says  the  Frenchman, 
in  his  own  way : 

"Mettant  le  cap  au  su  pour  nous  esloigner  afin  de  mouiller  1'ancre,  ayant 
fait  environ  deux  lieux  nous  appei^umes  un  cap  a  la  grande  terre  au  su  quart 
de  suest  de  nous  ou  il  pouvoit  avoit  six  lieues;  a  1'est  deux  lieues  appeix^umes 
trois  ou  quatre  isles  assez  hautes  et  a  1'ouest  un  grand  cu  de  sac." 

Here  are  the  bearings  of  Cape  Ann,  the  Isles  of  Shoals,  and  of  Ipswich 
Bay  defined  with  precision.  Charnplain  also  puts  the  latitude  of  Kennebunk 
River  at  forty-three  degrees  twenty-five  minutes,  which  shows  Pring  could 
hardly  have  explored  to  the  eastward  of  Cape  Elizabeth.  Smith,  in  1614,  de 
scribed  Cape  Ann  and  Cape  Cod  as  the  two  great  headlands  of  New  England, 
giving  to  the  former  the  name  of  Tragabigzanda ;  but  Champlain  had  pre 
ceded  him,  as  Gosnold  had  preceded  Champlain.  On  the  whole,  Gosnold, 
Pring,  and  Champlain  agree  remarkably  in  their  latitude  and  in  their  itin 
erary. 

At  Cape  Neddock  I  "put  up,"  or  rather  was  put  up — an  expression  ap 
plied  alike  to  man  and  beast  in  every  public-house  in  New  England — at  the 
old  Freeman  Tavern,  a  famous  stopping-place  in  by-gone  years,  when  the  mail- 
coach  between  Boston  and  Portland  passed  this  way.  Since  I  knew  it  the 
house  had  been  brushed  up  with  a  coat  of  paint  on  the  outside,  the  tall  sign 
post  was  gone,  and  nothing  looked  quite  natural  except  the  capacious  red 
barn  belonging  to  the  hostel.  The  bar-room,  however,  was  unchanged,  and 
the  aroma  of  old  Santa  Cruz  still  lingered  there,  though  the  pretty  hostess 
assured  me,  on  the  word  of  a  landlady,  there  was  nothing  in  the  house  strong 
er  than  small  beer.  It  was  not  so  of  yore,  when  all  comers  appeared  to  have 
taken  the  famous  Highgate  oath  :  "  Never  to  drink  small  beer  when  you 
could  get  ale,  unless  you  liked  small  beer  best." 

The  evening  tempted  me  to  a  stroll  down  to  the  harbor,  to  see  the  wood- 
coasters  go  out  with  the  flood.  Afterward  I  walked  on  the  beach.  The  full 
moon  shone  out  clear  in  the  heavens,  lighting  up  a  radiant  aisle  incrusted 
with  silver  pavement  on  the  still  waters,  broad  at  the  shore,  receding  until 
lost  in  the  deepening  mystery  of  the  farther  sea.  The  ground-swell  rose  and 
fell  with  regular  heaving,  as  of  Old  Ocean  asleep.  As  a  breaker  wavered  and 
toppled  over,  a  bright  gleam  ran  along  its  broken  arch  like  the  swift  flash 
ing  of  a  train.  Occasionally  some  craft  crossed  the  moon's  track,  where  it 
stood  out  for  a  moment  with  surprising  distinctness,  to  be  swallowed  up  an 
instant  later  in  the  surrounding  blackness.  Boon  Island  had  unclosed  its 
brilliant  eye — its  light  in  the  window  for  the  mariner.  It  had  been  a  perfect 
day,  but  the  night  was  enchanting. 


WHAT   THE   SEA  CAN  DO. 


CHAPTER  IX. 

AGAMENTICUS,  THE    ANCIENT    CITY. 

"  Land  of  the  forest  and  the  rock, 

Of  dark-blue  lake  and  mighty  river, 
Of  mountains  reared  aloft  to  mock 
The  storm's  career,  the  lightning's  shock — 
My  own  green  land  forever." 

WHITTIER. 

for  Agamenticus !  It  is  an  old  saying,  attributed  to  the  Iron  Duke, 
that  when  a  man  wants  to  turn  over  it  is  time  for  him  to  turn  out.  As 
there  are  six  good  miles  to  get  over  to  the  mountain,  and  as  many  to  return, 
I  was. early  astir.  The  road  is  chiefly  used  by  wood  teams,  and  was  well 
beaten  to  within  half  a  mile  of  the  hills.  From  thence  it  dwindled  into  a 
green  lane,  which  in  turn  becomes  a  footpath  bordered  by  dense  under 
growth.  Agamenticus  is  not  a  high  mountain,  although  so  noted  a  land 
mark.  There  are  in  reality  three  summits  of  nearly  equal  altitude,  ranging 
north-east  and  south-west,  the  westernmost  being  the  highest.  At  the  mount 
ain's  foot  is  a  scattered  hamlet  of  a  few  unthrifty-looking  cabins,  tenanted  by 
wood-cutters,  for,  notwithstanding  the  axe  has  played  sad  havoc  in  the  neigh 
boring  forests,  there  are  still  some  clumps  of  tall  pines  there  fit  for  the  king's 
ships.  You  obtain  your  first  glimpse  of  the  hills  when  still  two  miles  dis 
tant,  the  road  then  crossing  the  country  for  the  rest  of  the  way,  with  the 
mountain  looming  up  before  you. 

Along  shore,  and  in  the  country-side,  the  people  call  the  mount  indiffer 
ently  "Eddymenticus"  and  "Head  o'  Mentions."  Some,  who  had  lived  with 
in  a  few  miles  of  it  since  childhood,  told  me  they  had  never  had  the  curios 
ity  to  try  the  ascent.  One  man,  who  lived  within  half  a  mile  of  the  base  of 


124  THE  NEW  ENGLAND  COAST. 

the  western  hill,  had  never  been  on  any  of  the  others.  The  name  is  unmis 
takably  of  Indian  origin.  General  Gookin, in  his  "Historical  Collections  of 
the  Indians  in  New  England,"  written  in  1674,  has  the  following  in  relation  to 
the  tribes  inhabiting  this  region  :  "The  Pawtuckett  is  the  fifth  and  last  great 
sachemship  of  Indians.  Their  country  lieth  north  and  north-east  from  the 
Massachusetts,  whose  dominion  reacheth  so  far  as  the  English  jurisdiction, 
or  colony  of  the  Massachusetts,  now  doth  extend,  and  had  under  them  sev 
eral  other  small  sagamores,  as  the  Pennacooks,  Agawomes,  Naamkeeks,  Pas- 
catawayes,  Accornintas,  and  others."1 

The  climb  is  only  fatiguing;  it  is  not  at  all  difficult.  The  native  forest 
has  disappeared,  but  a  new  growth  of  deciduous  trees,  with  a  fair  sprinkling 
of  evergreens,  is  fast  replacing  it.  In  some  places  the  slender  stems  of  the 
birch  or  pine  shoot  up,  as  it  were,  out  of  the  solid  rock.  Following  the  dry 
bed  of  a  mountain  torrent,  and  turning  at  every  step  to  wonder  and  admire, 
in  half  an  hour  I  stood  on  the  top.  The  summit  contains  an  acre  or  more  of 
bare  granite  ledge,  with  tufts  of  wiry  grass  and  clumps  of  tangled  vines  grow 
ing  among  the  crevices.  Some  scattered  blocks  had  been  collected  at  the 
highest  point,  and  a  cairn  built.  I  seated  myself  on  the  topmost  stone  of  the 
monument. 

A  solitary  mountain  lifting  itself  above  the  surrounding  country  is  always 
impressive.  Agamenticus  seems  an  outpost  of  the  White  Hills,  left  stranded 
here  by  the  glacier,  or  upheaved  by  some  tremendous  throe.  The  day  was 
not  of  the  clearest,  or,  rather,  the  morning  mists  still  hung  in  heavy  folds 
about  the  ocean,  making  it  look  from  my  airy  perch  as  if  sky  and  sea  had 
changed  places.  Capes  and  headlands  were  revealed  in  a  striking  and  mys 
tical  way,  as  objects  dimly  seen  through  a  veil.  Large  ships  resembled  toys, 
except  that  the  blue  space  grasped  by  the  eye  was  too  vast  for  playthings. 
Cape  Elizabeth  northward  and  Cape  Ann  in  the  southern  board  stretched  far 
out  into  the  sea,  as  if  seeking  to  draw  tribute  of  all  passing  ships  into  the 
ports  between.  Here  were  the  Isles  of  Shoals,  lying  in  a  heap  together. 
That  luminous,  misty  belt  was  Rye  Beach.  And  here  was  the  Piscataqua, 
and  here  Portsmouth,  Kittery,  and  Old  York,  with  all  the  sea-shore  villages 
I  had  so  lately  traversed.  As  the  sun  rose  higher,  the  murky  curtain  was 
rolled  away,  and  the  ocean  appeared  in  its  brightest  azure. 

The  sea  is  what  you  seldom  tire  of,  especially  v/here  its  nearness  to  the 
chief  New  England  marts  shows  it  crowded  with  sails  bearing  up  for  port. 
Craft  of  every  build,  flags  of  every  nation,  pass  Agamenticus  and  its  three 
peaks  in  endless  procession — stately  ships 

"That  court'sy  to  them,  do  them  reverence 
As  they  fly  by  on  their  woven  wings." 


"Massachusetts  Historical  Collections,"  1792,  vol.  i. 


AGAMENTICUS,  THE  ANCIENT  CITY.  125 

Old  Ocean  parts  before  the  eager  prow.  You  fancy  you  see  the  foam  roll 
away  and  go  glancing  astern.  Here  is  a  bark  with  the  bottom  of  the  Tagus, 
and  another  witli  the  sands  of  the  Golden  Horn,  sticking  to  the  anchor-fluke; 
and  here  a  smoke  on  the  horizon's  rim  heralds  a  swifter*  messenger  from  the 
Old  World — some  steamship  climbing  the  earth's  rotundity;  and  yet  water, 
they  say,  will  not  run  up  hill!  When  I  looked  forth  upon  this  moving  scene 
my  lungs  began  to  "crow  like  chanticleer."  I  waved  my  hat,  and  shouted 
"a  good  voyage"  to  sailors  that  could  not  hear  me.  I  had  no  fear  of  listen 
ers,  for  the  Old  Man  of  the  Mountain  tells  no  tales.  To  stand  on  a  mountain- 
top  is  better,  to  my  mind,  than  to  be  up  any  distance  in  a  balloon.  You  have, 
at  least,  something  under  you,  and  can  come  down  when  you  like.  WThat  a 
fulcrum  Agamenticus  would  have  made  for  the  lever  of  Archimedes ! 

Landward,  the  horizon  is  bounded  by  the  WThite  Hills  —  the  "Crystal 
Mountains,  daunting  terrible,"  of  the  first  explorer.1  They  look  shadowy 
enough  at  this  distance — seventy  miles  as  the  crow  flies — Mount  Washington, 
grand  and  grim,  its  head  muffled  in  a  mantle  of  clouds,  overtopping  all.  The 
lofty  ranges  issuing  from  these  resemble  a  broken  wall  as  they  stretch  away 
to  the  Connecticut,  with  Moosehillock  towering  above. 

"  To  me  they  seemed  the  barriers  of  a  world, 
Saying,  'Thus  fur,  no  farther!'" 

The  busy  towns  of  Dover  and  Great  Falls,  with  the  nearer  \7illnges  of  Eliot 
and  Berwick,  are  grouped  about  in  picturesque  confusion,  a  spire  peeping  out 
of  a  seeming  forest,  a  broad  river  dwindling  to  a  rivulet. 

After  feasting  for  an  hour  upon  this  sight,  I  became  more  than  ever  per 
suaded  that,  except  in  that  rare  condition  of  the  atmosphere  when  the  White 
Hills  are  visible  far  out  to  sea,  Agamenticus  must  be  the  first  land  made  out 
in  approaching  the  coast  anywhere  within  half  a  degree  of  the  forty-third 
parallel.  Juan  Verazzani,  perchance,  certainly  Masters  Gosnold  and  Pring, 
saw  it  as  plainly  as  I  now  saw  the  ships  below  me,  where  they  had  sailed. 

I  thought  it  fitting  here,  on  the  top  of  Agamenticus,  with  as  good  a  map 
of  the  coast  spread  before  me  as  I  ever  expect  to  see,  to  hold  a  little  chat 
with  the  discoverers.  If  Hendrik  Hudson  haunts  the  fastnesses  of  the  Cats- 
kills — and  a  veracious  historian  asserts  that  he  has  been  both  seen  and  spoken 
with — why  may  not  the  shade  of  Captain  John  Smith  be  lurking  about  this 
headland,  where  of  yore  he  trafficked,  and,  for  aught  I  know,  clambered  as  I 
have  done  ? 

Right  over  against  me,  though  I  could  not  see  them,  were  the  Basque 
provinces,  whose  people  the  Romans  could  not  subdue,  and  whose  language, 
says  the  old  French  proverb,  the  devil  himself  could  not  learn.  Cape  Finis- 
terre  was  there,  with  its  shoals  of  sardines  and  its  impotent  conclusion  of  a 

1  An  Irishman,  Darby  Field  by  name. 


126  THE  NEW  ENGLAND  COAST. 

name,  as  if  it  had  been  the  end  of  the  world  indeed !  Archer  says,  in  his 
relation  of  Gosnold's  voyage,1  that  the  day  before  they  made  the  land  they 
had  sweet  smelling  of  the  shore  as  from  the  southern  cape  and  Andalusia,  in 
Spain.  It  was,  says  Breretcn,  "  a  Basque  shallop,  with  mast  and  sail,  an  iron 
grapple  and  a  kettle  of  copper,  came  boldly  aboard  of  us."  In  1578  there 
were  a  hundred  sail  of  Spanish  fishermen  on  the  Banks  of  Newfoundland  to 
fifty  English.  Spanish  Biscay  sent  twenty  or  thirty  vessels  there  to  kill 
whales ;  France  sent  a  hundred  and  fifty ;  and  Portugal  fifty  craft  of  small 
tonnage  to  fish  for  cod.  The  Indians  who  boarded  Gosnold  could  name  Pla- 
centia  and  Newfoundland,  and  might  have  come  from  thence  in  their  shallop, 
since  they  so  well  knew  how  to  use  it.  But  if  Brereton's  surmise  was  right, 
then  some  of  those  daring  fellows  from  the  Basse  Pyrenees  were  first  at  Sav 
age  Rock.  He  says,  "  It  seemed,  by  some  words  and  signs  they  made,  that 
some  Basques,  or  of  St.  John  de  Luz,  have  fished  or  traded  in  this  place,  being 
in  the  latitude  of  43  degrees." 

Because  there  was  no  sassafras,  it  is  not  much  we  know  about  Savage 
Rock.  The  root  of  this  aromatic  tree  was  worth  in  England  three  shillings 
the  pound,  or  three  hundred  and  thirty-six  pounds  the  ton,  when  Gosnold 
found  store  of  it  on  the  Elizabeth  Islands ;  but  as  he  was  informed,  "  before 
his  going  forth  that  a  ton  of  it  would  cloy  England,"  few  of  his  crew,  "and 
those  but  easy  laborers,"  were  employed  in  gathering  it.  "  The  powder  of 
sassafras,"  says  Archer,  "  in  twelve  hours  cured  one  of  our  company  that 
had  taken  a  great  surfeit  by  eating  the  bellies  of  dog-fish,  a  very  delicious 
meat." 

That  the  medicinal  qualities  of  sassafras  were  highly  esteemed  may  be  in 
ferred  from  what  is  said  of  it  in  "An  English  Exposition,"  printed  at  Cam 
bridge  (England),  in  1676,  by  John  Hayes,  printer  to  the  University. 

"  Sassafras. — A  tree  of  great  vertue,  which  groweth  in  Florida,  in  the 
West  Indies;  the  rinde  herof  hath  a  sweete  smell  like  cinnamon.  It  comfort- 
eth  the  liver  and  stomach,  and  openeth  obstructions  of  the  inward  parts, 
being  hot  and  dry  in  the  second  degree.  The  best  of  the  tree  is  the  root, 
next  the  boughs,  then  the  body,  but  the  principal  goodnesse  of  all  resteth  in 
the  rinde." 

One  Master  Robert  Meriton,  of  Gosnold's  company,  was  "  the  finder  of  the 
sassafras  in  these  parts,"  from  which  it  would  appear  that  the  shrub  in  its 
wild  state  was  little  known  to  these  voyagers. 

Coming  down  from  my  high  antiquarian  steed,  and  from  Agamenticus  at 
the  same  time,  I  walked  back  to  the  tavern  by  dinner-time,  having  fully  set 
tled  in  my  own  mind  the  oft -repeated  question,  the  touch -stone  by  which 
even  one's  pleasures  must  be  regulated,  "Will  it  pay?"  And  I  say  it  will  pay 
in  solid  nuggets  of  healthful  enjoyment,  even  if  no  higher  aspirations  are  de- 

1  Purchas,  vol.  iv.,  1G47. 


AGAMENTICUS,  THE  ANCIENT  CITY.  127 

veloped,  in  standing  where  at  every  instant  man  and  his  works  diminish, 
while  those  of  the  Creator  expand  before  you. 

.Douglass  remarks  that  "Aquamenticus  Hills  were  known  among  our  sail 
ors  as  a  noted  and  useful  land-making  for  vessels  that  fall  in  northward  of 
Boston  or  Massachusetts  Bay." 

Leaving  my  comfortable  quarters  at  Cape  Neddock,  I  pursued  my  walk 
to  Old  York  the  same  afternoon,  taking  the  Long  Sands  in  my  way.  It  was 
farther  by  the  beach  than  by  the  road,  but  as  I  was  in  no  haste  I  chose  the 
shore.  I  noticed  that  the  little  harbor  I  had  quitted  was  so  shallow  as  to  be 
left  almost  dry  by  the  receding  tide,  the  channel  being  no  more  than  a  riv 
ulet,  easily  forded  within  a  few  rods  of  the  sea.  Between  this  harbor  and 
Wells  Bay  I  had  passed  several  coves  where,  in  a  smooth  sea  and  during  a 
westerly  wind,  small  vessels  were  formerly  hauled  ashore,  and  loaded  with 
wood  at  one  tide  with  ease  and  safety.  York  Beach  is  about  a  mile  across. 
I  did  not  find  it  a  long  one. 

It  being  low  tide  and  a  fine  afternoon,  the  beach  was  for  the  time  being 
turned  into  a  highway,  broader  and  smoother  than  any  race-course  could  be, 
over  which  all  manner  of  vehicles  were  being  driven,  from  the  old-fashioned 
gig  of  the  village  doctor  to  the  aristocratic  landau,  fresh  from  town.  The 
sands  are  hard  and  gently  shelving,  with  here  and  there  a  fresh-water  brook 
let  trickling  through  the  bulk-head  of  ballast  heaped  up  at  the  top  by  the 
sea.  These  little  streams,  after  channeling  the  beach  a  certain  distance,  dis 
appeared  in  the  sand,  just  as  the  Platte  and  Arkansas  sink  out  of  sight  into 
the  plain. 

There  was  a  fresh  breeze  outside,  so  that  the  coasters  bowled  merrily 
along  with  bellying  sails  before  it,  or  else  bent  until  gunwale  under  as  they 
hugged  it  close.  The  color  of  the  sea  had  deepened  to  a  steely  blue.  White 
caps  were  flying,  and  the  clouds  betokened  more  wind  as  they  rose  and  un 
rolled  like  cannon-smoke  above  the  horizon,  producing  effects  such  as  Stan- 
field  liked  to  transfer  to  his  canvas.  Mackerel  gulls  were  wheeling  and  cir 
cling  above  the  breakers  with  shrill  screams.  Down  at  low-water  mark  the 
seas  came  bounding  in,  driven  by  the  gale,  leaping  over  each  other,  and  beat 
ing  upon  the  strand  with  ceaseless  roar. 

The  beach,  I  saw,  had  been  badly  gullied  by  the  late  storm,  but  the  sea, 
like  some  shrewish  housewife,  after  exhausting  its  rage,  had  set  about  putting 
things  to  rights  again.  I  found  shells  of  the  deep-sea  mussel,  of  quahaug  and 
giant  sea  clam,  bleaching  there,  but  did  not  see  the  small  razor-clam  I  have 
picked  up  on  Nahant  and  other  more  southerly  beaches. 

The  sea-mussel,  as  I  have  read,  was  in  the  olden  time  considered  a  cure  for 
piles  and  hemorrhoids,  being  dried  and  pulverized  for  the  purpose.  William 
Wood  speaks  of  a  scarlet  mussel  found  at  Piscataqua,  that,  on  being  pricked 
with  a  pin,  gave  out  a  purple  juice,  dying  linen  so  that  no  washing  would 
wear  it  out.  "  We  mark  our  handkerchiefs  and  shirts  with  it,"  says  this 


128  THE  NEW  ENGLAND  COAST. 

writer.1  The  large  mussel  is  very  toothsome.  Like  the  oyster  and  clam,  it 
was  dried  for  winter  use  by  the  Indians. 

The  giant  or  hen  clam-shell,  found  in  every  buttery  within  fifty  miles  of 
the  coast,  was  the  Indian's  garden  hoe.  After  a  storm  many  clams  would 
be  cast  up  on  the  beaches,  which  the  natives,  taking  out  of  the  shells,  carried 
home  in  baskets.  A  large  shell  will  hold  a  plentiful  draught  of  water,  and  is 
unequaled  for  a  milk- skimmer.  Only  a  part  of  the  fish  is  used  for  food,  as 
there  is  a  general  belief  that  a  portion  is  poisonous,  like  the  head  of  a  lobster. 
Mourt's  relation  of  the  landing  of  the  pilgrims  at  Cape  Cod  says  they  found 
"great  mussels,  and  very  fat  and  full  of  sea-pearle,  but  we  could  not  eat  them, 
for  they  made  us  all  sicke  that  did  eat,  as  well  saylers  as  passengers."  As 
they  are  only  found  on  the  beach  after  an  easterly  storm,  they  become  well 
filled  with  sand,  and  require  thorough  cleansing  before  cooking,  while  those 
taken  from  the  water  near  the  shore  are  better,  because  free  from  sand.  The 
common  clam  is  not  eaten  along  shore  during  the  summer,  except  at  the  ho 
tels  and  boarding-houses,  not  being  considered  wholesome  by  the  resident 
population  in  any  month  that  has  not  the  letter  R.  The  same  idea  is  current 
with  respect  to  the  oyster.  In  either  case  the  summer  is  inferior  to  the  win 
ter  fish,  and  as  Charles  XII.  once  said  of  the  army  bread,  "  It  is  not  good,  but 
may  be  eaten." 

There  was  but  little  sea-weed  or  kelp  thrown  up,  though  above  high-water 
mark  I  noticed  large  stacks  of  it  ready  to  be  hauled  away,  containing  as 
many  varieties  as  commonly  grow  among  the  rocks  hereaway.  But  there 
were  innumerable  cockles  and  periwinkles  lately  come  ashore,  and  emitting 
no  pleasant  odor.  The  natives  used  both  these  shells  to  manufacture  their 
wampum,  or  wampumpeag,  the  delicate  inner  wreath  of  the  periwinkle  being 
preferred.  Now  and  then  I  picked  up  a  sea-chestnut,  or  "  whore's  egg,"  as 
they  are  called  by  the  fishermen.  But  the  sand  roller,  or  circle,  is  the  curi 
osity  of  the  beach  as  a  specimen  of  ocean  handicraft.  I  passed  many  of  them 
scattered  about,  though  a  perfect  one  is  rarely  found,  except  on  shallow  bars 
beyond  low-water  mark.  Looking  down  over  the  side  of  a  boat,  I  have  seen 
more  than  I  wsis  able  to  count  readily,  but  they  are  too  fragile  to  bear  the 
buffeting  of  the  surf.  In  appearance  they  are  like  a  section  taken  off  the  top 
of  a  jug  where  the  cork  is  put  in,  and  as  neatly  rounded  as  if  turned  off  a  pot 
ter's  lathe.  Naturalists  call  them  the  nest  of  the  cockle. 

Going  down  the  sands  as  far  as  the  sea  would  allow,  I  remarked  that  the 
nearest  breakers  were  discolored  with  the  rubbish  of  shredded  sea-weed,  and 

1  In  England  there  is  a  cockle  called  the  purple,  from  the  coloring  matter  it  contains,  believed 
to  be  one  of  the  sources  from  which  the  celebrated  Tyrian  dye  was  obtained.  The  discovery  is  at 
tributed  in  mythical  story  to  a  dog.  The  Tyrian  Hercules  was  one  day  walking  with  his  sweet 
heart  by  the  shore,  followed  by  her  lap-dog,  when  the  animal  seized  a  shell  just  cast  upon  the  beach. 
Its  lips  were  stained  with  the  beautiful  purple  flowing  from  the  shell,  and  its  mistress,  charmed  with 
the  color,  demanded  a  dress  dyed  with  it  of  her  lover. 


AGAMENTICUS,  THE  ANCIENT  CITY.  129 

by  the  particles  of  sand  they  held  in  solution.  As  I  walked  on,  countless  sand- 
fleas  skipped  out  of  my  path,  as  I  have  seen  grasshoppers  in  a  stubble-field 
out  West.  The  sandpipers  ran  eagerly  about  in  pursuit,  giving  little  plaint 
ive  squeaks,  and  leaving  their  tiny  tracks  impressed  upon  the  wet  sand.  Little 
sprites  they  seemed  as  they  chased  the  refluent  wave  for  their  food,  sometimes 
overtaken  and  borne  off  their  feet  by  the  glancing  surf.  I  remember  having 
seen  a  flock  of  hens  scratching  among  the  sea-moss  for  these  very  beach-fleas 
in  one  of  the  coves  I  passed. 

Old  Neptune's  garden  contains  as  wonderful  plants  as  any  above  high- 
water  mark,  though  the  latter  do  well  with  less  watering.  I  have  thought 
the  botany  of  the  sea  worth  studying,  and,  as  it  is  sometimes  inconvenient  to 
pluck  a  plant  or  a  flower  when  you  want  it,  the  beach  is  the  place  for  speci 
mens.  Some  years  ago  delicate  sea-mosses  were  in  request.  They  were  kept 
in  albums,  pressed  like  autumn  leaves,  or  displayed  in  frames  on  the  walls  at 
home.  It  was  a  pretty  conceit,  and  employed  many  leisure  fingers  at  the 
sea-side,  but  appears  to  have  been  discarded  of  late. 

One  day,  during  a  storm,  I  went  down  to  the  beach,  to  find  it  encumbered 
with  "devils'  apron"  and  kelp,  whitening  where  it  lay.  I  picked  up  a  plant 
having  a  long  stalk,  slender  and  hollow,  of  more  than  ten  feet  in  length,  re 
sembling  a  gutta-percha  tube.  The  root  was  firmly  clasped  around  five  deep- 
sea  mussels,  while  the  other  end  terminated  in  broad,  plaited  leaves.  It  had 
been  torn  from  its  bed  in  some  sea-cranny,  to  be  combined  with  terrestrial 
vegetation ;  but  to  the  mussels  it  was  equal  whether  they  died  of  thirst  or 
of  the  grip  of  the  talon-like  root  of  the  kelp.  There  were  tons  upon  tons  of 
weed  and  moss,  which  the  farmers  were  pitching  with  forks  higher  up  the 
beach,  out  of  reach  of  the  sea,  the  kelp,  as  it  was  being  tossed  about,  quiver 
ing  as  if  there  were  life  in  it.  I  found  the  largest  mass  of  sponge  I  have  ever 
seen  on  shore — as  big  as  a  man's  head — and  was  at  a  loss  how  to  describe  it, 
until  I  thought  of  the  mops  used  on  shipboard,  and  made  of  rope-yarns ;  for 
this  body  of  sponge  was  composed  of  slender  branches  of  six  to  twelve  inches 
in  length,  each  branching  again,  coral-like,  into  three  or  four  offshoots.  The 
pores  were  alive  with  sand-fleas,  who  showed  great  partiality  for  it. 

What  at  first  seems  paradoxical  is,  that  with  the  wind  blowing  directly 
on  shore,  the  kelp  will  not  land,  but  is  kept  just  beyond  the  surf  by  the  un- 
der-tow;  it  requires  an  inshore  wind  to  bring  it  in.  One  who  has  walked  on 
the  beach  weaves  of  its  sea-weed  a  garland : 

"  From  Bermuda's  reefs,  from  edges 

Of  sunken  ledges, 
On  some  far-off,  bright  Azore; 
From  Bahama  and  the  dashing, 

Silver-flashing 
Surges  of  San  Salvador: 
*  *  *  *  * 

9 


130  THE  NEW  ENGLAND  COAST. 

Ever  drifting,  drifting,  drifting 

On  the  shifting 
Currents  of  the  restless  main." 

I  had  before  walked  round  the  cape  one  way,  and  now,  passing  it  from  a 
contrary  direction,  had  fairly  doubled  it.  After  leaving  York  Beach  I  push 
ed  on  for  Old  York,  finding  little  to  arrest  my  steps,  until  at  night-fall  I  ar 
rived  at  the  harbor,  after  a  twenty-mile  tramp,  with  an  appetite  that  augured 
ill  for  mine  host. 

It  was  not  my  first  visit  to  Old  York,  but  I  found  the  place  strangely 
altered  from  its  usual  quiet  and  dullness.  The  summer,  as  Charles  Lamb 
says,  had  set  in  with  its  usual  severity,  and  I  saw  fishers  in  varnished  boots, 
boatmen  in  tight-fitting  trowsers,  and  enough  young  Americans  in  navy  blue 
to  man  a  fleet  by-and-by.  Parasols  fluttered  about  the  fields,  and  silks  swept 
the  wet  floor  of  the  beach.  I  had  examined  with  a  critical  eye  as  I  walked 
the  impressions  of  dainty  boots  in  the  sand,  keeping  step  with  others  of  more 
masculine  shape,  and  marked  where  the  pace  had  slackened  or  quickened, 
and  where  the  larger  pair  had  diverged  for  a  moment  to  pick  up  a  stone  or  a 
pebble,  or  perchance  in  hurried  self-communing  for  a  question  of  mighty  im 
port.  Sometimes  the  foot-prints  diverged  not  to  meet  again,  and  I  saw  the 
gentleman  had  walked  oif  with  rapid  strides  in  the  opposite  direction.  For 
hours  on  the  beach  I  had  watched  these  human  tracks,  almost  as  devious  as 
the  bird's,  until  I  fancied  I  should  know  their  makers.  Not  unfrequently  I 
espied  a  monogram,  traced  with  a  stick  or  the  point  of  a  parasolT  the  lesser 
initials  lovingly  twined  about  the  greater.  Faith  1  I  came  to  regard  the 
beach  itself  as  a  larger  sort  of  tablet  graven  with  hieroglyphics,  easy  to  de 
cipher  if  you  have  the  key. 

The  hotel1  appeared  deserted,  but  it  was  only  a  seclusion  of  calculation. 
After  supper  the  guests  set  about  what  I  may  call  their  usual  avocations. 
Not  a  few  "  paired  off',"  as  they  sav  at  Washington,  for  a  walk  on  the  beach, 
springing  down  the  path  with  elastic  step  and  voices  full  of  joyous  mirth. 
One  or  two  maidens  I  had  seen  rowing  on  the  river  showed  blistered  hands 
to  condoling  cavaliers.  Young  matrons,  carefully  shawled  by  their  husbands, 
sauntered  off  for  a  quiet  evening  ramble,  or  mingled  in  the  frolic  of  the  juve 
niles  going  on  in  the  parlor.  The  dowagers  all  sought  a  particular  side  of 
the  house,  where,  out  of  ear-shot  of  the  piano,  they  solaced  themselves  with 
the  evening  newspapers,  damp  from  presses  sixty  miles  away.  A  few  choice 
spirits  gathered  in  the  smoking-room,  where  they  maintained  a  frigid  reserve 
toward  all  new-comers,  their  conversation  coming  out  between  puffs,  as  void 
of  warmth  as  the  vapor  that  rises  from  ice.  On  the  beach,  and  alone  with 
inanimate  objects,  I  had  company  enough  and  to  spare;  here,  with  a  hundred 

1  Situated  on  Stage  Neck,, a  rocky  peninsula  connected  with  the  main  shore  by  a  narrow  isth 
mus,  on  which  is  a  beach.  There  was  formerly  a  fort  on  the  north-east  point  of  the  Neck. 


AGAMENTICUS,  THE  ANCIENT  CITY.  131 

of  my  own  species,  it  was  positively  dreary.  I  took  a  turn  on  the  piazza,  and 
soon  retired  to  my  cell ;  for  in  these  large  caravansaries  man  loses  his  indi 
viduality  and  becomes  a  number. 

Old  York,  be  it  remembered,  is  one  of  those  places  toward  which  the  his 
tory  of  a  country  or  a  section  converges.  Thus,  when  you  are  in  Maine  all 
roads,  historically  speaking,  lead  to  York.  Long  before  there  was  any  set 
tlement  it  had  become  well  known  from  its  mountain  and  its  position  near 
the  mouth  of  the  Piscataqua.  Its  first  name  was  Agamenticus.  Says  Smith, 
"Accominticus  and  Pascataquack  are  two  convenient  harbors  for  small  barks, 
and  a  good  country  within  their  craggy  cliffs:"  this  in  1614.  He  could  not 
have  sounded,  perhaps  not  even  ascended,  the  Piscataqua. 

Christopher  Levett,  in  his  voyage,  begun  in  1623  and  ended  in  1624,  says 
of  this  situation:  "Abovut  two  leagues  farther  to  the  east  (of  Piscataqua)  is 
another  great  river,  called  Aquamenticus.  There,  I  think,  a  good  plantation 
may  be  settled;  for  there  is  a  good  harbor  for  ships,  good  ground,  and  much 
already  cleared,  fit  for  planting  of  corn  and  other  fruits,  having  heretofore 
been  planted  by  the  savages,  who  are  all  dead.  There  is  good  timber,  and 
likely  to  be  good  fishing ;  but  as  yet  there  hath  been  no  trial  made  that  I  can 
hear  of."  Levett  was  one  of  the  Council  of  New  England,  joined  with  Rob 
ert  Gorges,  Francis  West,  and  Governor  Bradford.  From  his  account,  Aga 
menticus  appears  to  have  been  a  permanent  habitation  of  the  Indians,  who 
had  been  stricken  by  the  same  plague  that  desolated  what  was  afterward 
New  Plymouth. 

The  first  English  settlement  was  begun  probably  in  1624,  but  not  earlier 
than  1623,  on  both  sides  of  York  River,  by  Francis  Norton,  who  had  raised 
himself  at  home  from  the  rank  of  a  common  soldier  to  be  a  lieutenant-colonel 
in  the  army.  This  was  Norton's  project,  and  he  had  the  address  to  persuade 
Sir  Ferdinando  Gorges  to  unite  in  the  undertaking.  Artificers  to  build  mills, 
cattle,  and  other  necessaries  for  establishing  the  plantation,  were  sent  over. 
A  patent  passed  to  Ferdinando  Gorges,  Norton,  and  others,  of  twelve  thou 
sand  acres  on  the  east  to  Norton,  and  twelve  thousand  on  the  west  of  Aga 
menticus  River  to  Gorges.  Captain  William  Gorges  was  sent  out  by  his  un 
cle  to  represent  that  interest.1 

The  plantation  at  Agamenticus  was  incorporated  into  a  borough  in  1641, 
and  subsequently,  in  1642,  into  a  city,  under  the  name  of  Gorgeana.  Thomas 
Gorges,  cousin  of  Sir  F.  Gorges,  and  father  of  Ferdinando,  was  the  first  mayor. 
It  was  also  made  a  free  port.  Though  Gorgeana  was  probably  the  first  in 
corporated  city  in  America,  it  was  in  reality  no  more  than  an  inconsiderable 
sea-coast  village,  with  a  few  houses  in  some  of  the  best  places  for  fishing  and 
navigation.  Its  territory  was,  however,  ample,  embracing  twenty-one  square 
miles.  There  was  little  order  or  morality  among  the  people,  and  in  one  ac- 

1  Sir  F.  Gorges's  own  relation. 


132  THE  NEW  ENGLAND  COAST. 

count  it  is  said  "  they  had  as  many  shares  in  a  woman  as  a  fishing  boat.1  All 
the  earlier  authorities  I  have  seen  agree  in  giving  Gorgeana  an  indifferent 
character,  and  I  was  not  surprised  to  find  a  couplet  still  extant,  expressive  of 
the  local  estimate  in  which  its  villages  were  once  held. 

"  Cape  Neddock  and  the  Nubble, 
Old  York  and  the  d— 1." 

Governor  Winthrop,  of  Massachusetts,  made,  in  1643,  the  following  entry 
in  his  "Journal:"  "Those  of  Sir  Ferdinando  Gorge  his  province  beyond  Pis- 
cat  were  not  admitted  to  the  confederation,2  because  they  ran  a  different 
course  from  us,  both  in  their  ministry  and  civil  administration ;  for  they  had 
lately  made  Accomenticus  (a  poor  village)  a  corporation,  and  had  made  a 
taylor  their  mayor,  and  had  entertained  one  Mr.  Hull,  an  excommunicated 
person,  and  very  contentious,  for  their  minister."  A  Boston  man,  and  a  mag 
istrate,  stood  thus  early  on  his  dignity. 

Sir  F.  Gorges  makes  his  appearance  in  that  brilliant  and  eventful  period 
when  Elizabeth  ruled  in  England,  Henry  IV.  iji  France,  and  Philip  II.  in 
Spain.  He  is  said  to  have  revealed  the  conspiracy  of  Devereux,  earl  of  Es 
sex,  to  Sir  Walter  Raleigh,  after  having  himself  been  privy  to  it.3  This 
act,  a  bar-sinister  in  the  biography  of  Gorges,  sullies  his  escutcheon  at  the 
outset.  History  must  nevertheless  award  that  he  was  the  most  zealous,  the 
most  indefatigable,  and  the  most  influential  of  those  who  freely  gave  their 
talents  and  their  wealth  to  the  cause  of  American  colonization.  Gorges 
deserves  to  be  called  the  father  of  New  England.  For  more  than  forty 
years — extending  through  the  reigns  of  James  I.  and  of  Charles  I.,  the  Com 
monwealth,  and  the  Restoration — he  pursued  his  favorite  idea  with  a  con 
stancy  that  seems  almost  marvelous  when  the  troublous  times  in  which  he 
lived  are  passed  in  review.  In  a  letter  to  Buckingham  on  the  affairs  of 
Spain,  Gorges  says  he  was  sometimes  thought  worthy  to  be  consulted  by 
Elizabeth. 

Sir  Ferdinando  commanded  at  Ptymouth,  England,  with  his  nephew  Wil 
liam  for  his  lieutenant,  when  Captain  Weymouth  returned  to  that  port  from 
New  England.  On  board  Wey mouth's  ship  were  five  natives,  of  whom  three 
were  seized  by  Gorges.  They  were  detained  by  him  until  they  were  able 
to  give  an  account  of  the  topography,  resources,  and  peoples  of  their  far-off 
country.  From  this  circumstance  dates  Gorges's  active  participation  in  New 
England  affairs. 

He  was  interested  in  Lord  John  Popham's  ineffectual  attempt.     Finding 


1  About  1047  the  settlements  at  Agamenticus  were  made  a  town  by  the  name  of  York,  proba 
bly  from  English  York. 

2  Confederation  of  the  colonies  for  mutual  protection. 

3  Elizabeth  died  while  Martin  Pring  was  preparing  to  sail  for  America  ;  and  Essex  and  Raleigh 
both  went  to  the  block. 


AGAMENTICUS,  THE  ANCIENT  CITY.  133 

the  disasters  of  that  expedition,  at  home  and  abroad,  had  so  disheartened  his 
associates  that  he  could  no  longer  reckon  on  their  assistance,  he  dispatched 
Richard  Vines  and  others  at  his  own  charge,  about  1617,  to  the  same  coast 
the  Pophani  colonists  had  branded,  on  their  return,  as  too  cold  to  be  inhab 
ited  by  Englishmen.  Vines  established  himself  at  or  near  the  mouth  of  the 
Saco.  Between  the  years  1617  and  1620,  Gorges  sent  Captains  Hobson,  Ro- 
croft,  and  Dermer  to  New  England,  but  their  voyages  were  barren  of  results. 
In  1620  Gorges  and  others  obtained  from  the  king  a  separate  patent,  with 
similar  privileges,  exemption  from  custom,  subsidies,  etc.,  such  as  had  for 
merly  been  granted  the  Virginia  Company. 

By  this  patent  the  adventurers  to  what  had  heretofore  been  known  as 
the  "  Northern  Colony  in  Virginia,"  and  "  The  Second  Colony  in  Virginia," 
obtained  an  enlargement  of  territory,  so  as  to  include  all  between  the  fortieth 
and  forty-eighth  parallels,  and  extending  westward  to  the  South  Sea  or  Pa 
cific  Ocean.  This  was  the  Great  Charter  of  New  England,  out  of  which 
were  made  the  subsequent  grants  within  its  territory.  The  incorporators 
were  styled  "The  Council  of  Plymouth."1 

The  Virginia  Company,  whose  rights  were  invaded,  attempted  to  annul 
the  Plymouth  Company's  patent.  Defeated  before  the  Lords,  they  brought 
the  subject  the  next  year,  1621,  before  Parliament,  as  a  monopoly  and  a  griev 
ance  of  the  Commonwealth.  Gorges  was  cited  to  appear  at  the  bar  of  the 
House,  and  made  his  defense,  Sir  Edward  Coke2  being  then  Speaker.  After 
hearing  the  arguments  of  Gorges  and  his  lawyers  on  three  several  occasions, 
the  House,  in  presenting  the  grievances  of  the  kingdom  to  the  throne,  placed 
"Sir  Ferd.  Gorges's  patent  for  sole  fishing  in  New  England"  at  the  head  of 
the  catalogue ;  but  Parliament,  having  made  itself  obnoxious  to  James,  was 
dissolved,  and  some  of  its  members  committed  to  the  Tower.  The  patent 
was  saved  for  a  time. 

Before  this  affair  of  the  Parliament  the  Pilgrims  had  made  their  ever-fa 
mous  landing  in  New  England.  Finding  themselves,  contrary  to  their  first 
intention,  located  within  the  New  England  patent,  they  applied  through 
their  solicitor  in  England  to  Gorges  for  a  grant,  and  in  1623  they  obtained 
it.  This  was  the  first  patent  of  Plymouth  Colony;  in  1629  they  had  another, 
made  to  William  Bradford  and  his  associates. 

In  1623  the  frequent  complaints  to  the  Council  of  Plymouth  of  the  abuses 
and  disorders  committed  by  fishermen  and  other  intruders  within  their  pa 
tent,  determined  them  to  send  out  an  officer  to  represent  their  authority  on 
the  spot.  Robert  Gorges,  son  of  Sir  Ferdinando,  wras  fixed  upon,  and  became 
for  a  short  time  invested  with  the  powers  of  a  civil  magistrate.  According 
to  Belknap,  he  was  styled  "  Lieutenant-general  of  New  England."  George 
Popham  was  the  first  to  exercise  a  local  authority  within  her  limits. 

1  The  insertion  of  the  lengthy  title  in  full  appears  unnecessary.        a  The  celebrated  commentator. 


134 


THE  NEW  ENGLAND  COAST. 


The  Great  Charter  of  New  England  was  surrendered  to  the  crown  in 
April,  1635,  and  the  territory  embraced  within  it  was  parceled  out  among 
the  patentees,  Gorges  receiving  for  his  share  a  tract  of  sixty  miles  in  extent, 
from  the  Merrimac  to  the  Kennebec,  reaching  into  the  country  one  hundred 
and  twenty  miles.  This  tract  was  called  the  province  of  Maine.  It  was  di 
vided  by  Gorges  into  eight  bailiwicks  or  counties,  and  these  again  into  six 
teen  hundreds,  after  the  manner  of  the  Chiltern  Hundreds,  a  fief  of  the  English 
crown.  The  Hundreds  were  subdivided  into  parishes  and  tithings. 

It  would  fatigue  the  reader  to  enter  into  the  details  of  the  government 
established  by  Gorges  within  what  he  calls  "  my  province  of  Maine."  It  was 
exceedingly  cumbrous,  and  the  few  inhabitants  were  in  as  great  danger  of 
being  governed  too  much  as  later  communities  have  often  been.  An  annual 
rental  was  laid  on  the  lands,  and  no  sale  or  transfer  could  be  made  without 
consent  of  the  Council.  This  distinction,  as  against  the  neighboring  colony 
of  Massachusetts,  where  all  were  freeholders,  was  fatal.  The  crown,  in  con 
firming  the  grant  to  Gorges,  vested  him  with  privileges  and  powers  similar 
to  those  of  the  lords  palatine  of  the  ancient  city  of  Durham.  Under  this  au 
thority  the  plantation  at  Agamenticus  was  raised  to  the  dignity  of  a  city, 
and  a  quasi  ecclesiastical  government  founded  in  New  England. 

Belknap  says  further  that  there  was  no  provision  for  public  institutions. 
Schools  were  unknown,  and  they  had  no  minister  till,  in  pity  of  their  deplora 
ble  state,  two  went  thither  from  Boston  on  a  voluntary  mission. 

There  are  yet  some  interesting  objects  to  be  seen  in  York,  though  few  of 
the  old  houses  are  remaining  at  the 
harbor.  These  few  will,  however,  re 
pay  a  visit.  Prominent  among  her  an 
tiquities  is  the  meeting-house  of  the 
first  parish.  An  inscription  in  the 
foundation  records  as  follows : 

"Founded  A.  D.  1747. 
The  Revd.  Mr.  Moody,  Pas." 

The  church  is  placed  on  a  grassy 
knoll,  with  the  parsonage  behind  it. 
Its  exterior  is  plain.  If  such  a  dis 
tinction  may  be  made,  it  belongs  to 
the  third  order  of  New  England 
churches,  succeeding  to  the  square 
tunnel-roofed  edifice,  as  that  had  suc 
ceeded  the  original  barn-like  house  of 
worship.  Entering  the  porch,  I  saw 
two  biers  leaning  against  the  stair 
case  of  the  bell-tower,  and  noticed  that  YOKK  MEETING-HOUSE. 
the  bell-ringer  or  his  assistants  had  indulged  a  passion  for  scribbling  on  the 


AGAMENTICUS,  THE  ANCIENT  CITY.  135 

walls,  though  not,  as  might  be  inferred,  from  Scripture  texts.  The  interior  is 
as  severe  as  the  exterior.  Besides  its  rows  of  straight-backed  pews,  it  was 
furnished  at  one  end  with  a  mahogany  pulpit,  communion-table,  and  sofa 
covered  with  black  hair-cloth.  Hanging  in  a  frame  against  the  pulpit  are 
fac-similes  of  letters  from  the  church  at  York  to  that  of  Rowley,  bearing  the 
date  of  1673.  The  tower  is  an  ingenious  piece  of  joinery  that  reminded  me 
of  Hingham  church. 

Shubael  Dnmmer,  the  first  minister  of  this  parish,  was  killed  in  1692,  at 
the  sacking  of  the  place  by  the  Indians.  He  was  shot  down  in  the  act  of 
mounting  his  horse  at  his  own  door,  a  short  distance  toward  the  harbor. 
Mather,  in  his  "Magnalia,"  indulges  in  a  strain  of  eulogy  toward  this  gentle 
man  that  we  should  now  call  hifalutin.  Dummer's  successor  was  Samuel 
Moody,  an  eccentric  but  useful  minister,  still  spoken  of  as  "Parson  Moody." 
He  was  Sir  William  Pepperell's  chaplain  in  the  Louisburg  expedition,  and 
noted  for  the  length  and  fervor  of  his  prayers. 

After  the  capitulation  Sir  William  gave  a  dinner  to  the  superior  officers 
of  the  army  and  fleet.  Knowing  the  prolixity  of  his  chaplain,  he  was  em 
barrassed  by  the  thought  that  the  parson's  long-winded  grace  might  weary 
the  admiral  and  others  of  his  guests.  In  this  dilemma,  he  was  astonished  to 
see  the  parson  advance  and  address  the  throne  of  grace  in  these  words:  "O 
Lord,  we  have  so  many  things  to  thank  thee  for,  that  time  will  be  infinitely 
too  short  for  it ;  we  must  therefore  leave  it  for  the  work  of  eternity." 

A  second  parish  was  formed  in  York  about  1730.  Rev.  Joseph  Moody, 
the  son  of  Samuel,  was  ordained  its  first  pastor,  in  1732.  At  the  death  of  his 
wife  he  fell  into  a  settled  melancholy,  and  constantly  appeared  with  his  face 
covered  with  a  handkerchief.  From  this  circumstance  he  was  called  "  Hand 
kerchief  Moody."  He  was  possessed  of  wit,  and  some  dreary  anecdotes  are 
related  of  him.  Mr.  Hawthorne  has  made  the  incident  of  the  handkerchief 
the  frame-work  of  one  of  his  gloomiest  tales.  I  know  of  no  authority  other 
than  tradition  to  support  the  statement  made  in  a  note  accompanying  the 
tale,  that  "in  early  life  he  (Moody)  had  accidentally  killed  a  beloved  friend."1 

It  is  only  a  short  distance  from  the  church  to  the  old  burying-ground,  and 
I  was  soon  busy  among  the  inscriptions,  though  I  did  not  find  them  as  in 
teresting  as  I  had  anticipated.  The  place  seemed  wholly  uncared  for.  The 
grass  grew  rank  and  tangled,  making  the  examination  difficult,  and  at  every 
step  I  sank  to  the  knee  in  some  hollow.  The  yard  is  ridged  with  graves, 
and  must  have  received  the  dust  of  many  generations,  going  back  even  to 
those  who  acknowledged  the  first  James  for  their  dread  lord  and  sovereign. 

1  We  are  warranted  in  the  belief  that  the  first  services  held  in  this  plantation  were  those  of  the 
Church  of  England.  The  first,  or  borough,  charter  mentions  the  church  chapel.  Robert  Gorges, 
in  1623,  brought  over  an  Episcopal  chaplain,  William  Morrell,  and  with  him  also  came,  as  is  sup 
posed,  Rev.  William  Blackstone,  the  first  inhabitant  of  Boston. 


136 


THE  NEW  ENGLAND  COAST. 


As  usual,  the  older  stones,  when  I  had  found  them,  were  too  much  defaced 
to  be  deciphered,  and  I  remarked  that  the  slate  grave-stone  of  Parson  Moody 
preserved  but  few  of  its  original  lines.  Beside  him  lay  the  remains  of  his 
wife.  The  following  is  his  own  epitaph : 

"  Here  lies  the  body  of  the 

REV'D  SAMUEL  MOODY,  A.M. 

The  zealous,  faithful,  and  successful  pastor  of  the 

First  Church  of  Christ  in  York. 

Was  born  in  Newbury,  January  4th,  1675. 

Graduated  1697.    Came  hither  May  i6th, 

Died  here  November  I3th,  1747. 

For  his  farther  character  read  the  2d  Corinthians, 

3d  chapter  and  first  six  verses." 

In  the  corner  of  the  ground  next  the  main  street  is  the  monumental  tablet 
of  Hon.  David  Sewall.  A  plain  slab  of  slate  at  his  side  marks  the  resting- 
place  of  his  wife.  On  this  are  enumerated  some  of  the  public  offices  held  by 
her  husband,  and  the  two  monuments  might  furnish  the  reader  with  materials 
for  a  biography. 

Mr.  Adams,  in  his  "  Diary,"  notes  meeting  his  "  old  friend  and  classmate  " 
at  York,  when  he  was  going  the  circuit  in  1770.  Sewall  had  just  returned 
from  a  party  of  pleasure  at  Agamenticus,  and  the  talk  was  of  erecting  a  bea 
con  upon  it.  At  this  time  he  was  looked  upon  as  a  Tory,  but  became  a  zeal 
ous  Whig  before  hostilities  with  the  mother  country  began. 


JAIL  AT  OLD  YORK. 

In  1640,  says  Lechford,  nothing  was  read  nor  any  funeral  sermon  made  at 
a  burial,  but  at  the  tolling  of  the  bell  all  the  neighborhood  came  together, 
and  after  bearing  the  dead  solemnly  to  the  grave,  stood  by  until  it  was  closed. 
The  ministers  were  commonly,  but  not  always,  present.  In  these  few  and 
simple  rites  our  fathers  testified 

,  "The  emptiness  of  human  pride, 

The  nothingness  of  man." 


AGAMENTICUS,  THE  ANCIENT  CITY. 


137 


On  a  rising  ground  opposite  the  town-house  is  the  old  jail  of  York.  I 
have  deemed  it  worthy  a  passing  notice.  It  is  a  quaint  old  structure,  and 
has  held  many  culprits  in  former  times,  when  York  was  the  seat  of  justice  for 
the  county,  though  it  would  not  keep  your  modern  burglar  an  hour.  It  is 
perched,  like  a  bird  of  ill  omen,  on  a  rocky  ledge,  where  all  might  see  it  in 
passing  over  the  high-road.  Thus,  in  the  early  day,  the  traveler  on  enter 
ing  the  county  town  encountered,  first,  the  stocks  and 
whipping -post;  continuing  his  route,  he  in  due  time 
came  to  the  gallows,  at  the  town's  end.  The  exterior 
of  the  jail  is  not  especially  repulsive,  now  that  it  is  no 
longer  a  prison ;  but  the  inside  is  a  relic  of  barbarism 
— just  such  a  place  as  I  have  often  imagined  the  miser 
able  witchcraft  prisoners  might  have  been  confined  in. 
The  back  wall  is  of  stone.  The  doors  are  six  inches 
of  solid  oak,  studded  with  heavy  nails ;  the  gratings 
secured  with  the  blades  of  mill  saws,  having  the  jagged 
teeth  upward ;  the  sills,  locks,  and  bolts  are  ponderous, 
and  unlike  any  thing  the  present  century  has  produced. 
The  dungeons,  of  which  there  are  two,  admitted  no 
ray  of  light  except  when  the  doors  were  opened;  and 
these  doors  were  of  two  thicknesses  of  oaken  planks 

banded  between  with  plates  of  iron,  and  on  the  outside  with  rusty  blades  of 
mill  saws,  as  were  also  the  crevices  through  which  the  jailer  passed  bread 
and  water  to  the  wretched  criminals.  The  gloom 
and  squalor  of  these  cachots  oppressed  the  spirits 
of  even  the  casual  visitor,  free  to  come  and  go  at 
pleasure;  what  must  it,  then,  have  been  to  the 
wretches  condemned  to  inhabit  them?  Above 
these  dungeons  were  two  or  three  cells,  secured 
by  precautions  similar  to  those  below ;  while 
other  apartments  were  reserved  for  the  jailer's 
use.  The  house  was  inhabited,  and  children 
were  playing  about  the  floor.  I  fancied  their 

merry  laughter  issuing  from  solitary  dungeons  where  nothing  but  groans 
and  imprecations  had  once  been  heard.  Perchance  there  have  been  Hester 
Prynnes  and  Cassandra  Southwicks  immured  within  these  walls. 

As  I  never  feel  quite  at  home  within  a  prison,  I  made  haste  to  get  into 
the  open  air  again.  I  noticed,  what  is  common  in  the  country,  that  an  un 
derpinning  of  boards  had  been  placed  around  the  foundation  at  the  distance 
of  a  foot,  the  space  within  being  filled  with  earth.  "  That,"  said  a  whimsical 
fellow,  "is  to  keep  the  coarsest  of  the  cold  out." 

They  have  a  jail  at  Alfred  hardly  more  secure  than  the  old.  I  was  told 
of  a  prisoner  who  coolly  informed  the  jailer  one  morning  that  if  he  did  not 


138  THE  NEW  ENGLAND  COAST. 

supply  him  with  better  victuals  he  would  not  stay  another  day.  He  was  as 
good  as  his  word,  making  his  escape  soon  after.  Wagner,  the  Isles  of  Shoals 
murderer,  also  broke  jail  at  Alfred,  but  was  recaptured. 

I  should  have  liked  to  devote  a  few  moments  to  the  old  court-house,  its 
eminent  and  distinguished  judges  and  barristers  of  the  provincial  courts,  not 
forgetting  its  crier  and  constables.  I  should,  I  repeat,  like  to  open  the  court, 
and  marshal  the  jurors,  witnesses,  and  even  the  idlers  to  their  places  in  the 
king's  name.  I  should  like  to  hear  some  of  those  now  antiquated,  but  then 
oft-quoted,  scraps  of  law  from  the  statutes  of  Richard  II.  or  Sixth  Edward. 
But  it  is  all  past.  Bag-wigs,  black  gowns,  and  silver  buckles  are  no  more 
seen,  except  in  family  portraits  of  the  time,  and  the  learned  counsel  of  to-day 
no  more  address  each  other  as  "Brother  A —  "  or  "B ."  There  do  re 
main,  however,  in  front  of  the  old  court-house  four  beautifully  spreading  elms, 
planted  by  David  Sewall  in  1773.  To  look  at  them  now,  it  is  not  easy  to 
fancy  they  could  be  grasped  with  the  hand  when  the  battle  of  Lexington  was 
fought. 

I  passed  on  by  the  old  tavern -stand  where  Woodbridge,  in  1770, 
swung  his  sign  of  "  Billy  Pitt,"  and  underneath,  the  words  "  Entertain 
ment  for  the  Sons  of  Liberty  " — a  hint  to  Tories  to  take  their  custom  else 
where.  I  should  have  enjoyed  a  pipe  with  that  landlord,  as  John  Adams 
says  he  did. 

In  Old  York  they  have  a  precinct  known  as  Scotland,  said  to  have  been 
first  settled  by  some  of  the  prisoners  of  Cromwell's  victory  at  Dunbar,  and 
shipped  over  seas  to  be  sold  as  apprentices  for  a  term  of  years.  I  was  bound 
thither  to  see  the  garrison  houses  that  had  withstood  the  onset  of  the  Indians 
in  King  William's  war. 

It  is  four  miles  from  the  village  to  Scotland  parish,  the  road  passing 
through  broad  acres  of  cleared  land  or  ancient  orchards,  with  now  and  then  a 
by-way  of  green  turf  leading  to  a  farm-house  on  the  river,  or  a  gleam  of  the 
stream  itself  winding  through  the  meadows  as  you  mount  the  rocky  hills  in 
your  route. 

Cider  Hill  is  a  classic  locality,  which  the  traveler  must  pass  through.  It 
is  well  named,  I  should  say,  the  trees,  though  old,  being  laden  with  apples,  fit 
only  for  the  cider-press.  I  was  struck  with  the  age  of  the  orchards,  and  in 
deed  with  the  evidences  on  all  sides  of  the  long  occupancy  of  the  land.  In 
going  up  and  down  the  traveled  roads  of  York  the  impression  is  everywhere 
gained  of  an  old  settled  country. 

By  the  side  of  the  road  is  the  withered  trunk  of  an  ancient  tree,  said  to 
have  been  brought  from  England  in  a  tub  more  than  two  hundred  years  ago. 
Nothing  remains  but  the  hollow  shell,  which  still  puts  forth  a  few  green 
shoots.  Next  to  the  rocks,  it  is  the  oldest  object  on  the  road.  At  a  little 
distance  it  has  sent  up  an  offshoot,  now  a  tree  bearing  fruit,  and  has  thus 
risen  again,  as  it  were,  from  its  own  ashes.  This  tree  deserves  to  be  remem- 


AGAMENTICUS,  THE  ANCIENT  CITY. 


139 


OLD  GARRISON-HOUSE. 


bered  along  with  the  Stuyvesant  and  Endicott  pear-trees.     There  is,  or  was, 
another  apple-tree  of  equal  age  with  this  in  Bristol. 

"  You  have  a  good  many  apples  this  year,"  I  said  to  a  farmer. 

"  Oh,  a  marster  sight  on 
'em,  sir,  marster  sight ;  but 
they  don't  fetch  nothing." 

"Is  the  cool  summer  in 
juring  your  corn?"  I  pur 
sued. 

"  Snouted  it,  sir ;  snout 
ed  it." 

The  Junkins's  garrison  is 
the  first  reached.  It  is  on 
the  brow  of  a  high  hill  over 
looking  the  river  meadows, 
where,  if  good  watch  were 
kept,  a  foe  could  hardly  have  approached  unseen.  It  can  not  survive  much 
longer.  It  is  dilapidated  inside  and  out  to  a  degree  that  every  blast  searches 
it  through  and  through.  The  doors  stood  ajar;  the  floors  were  littered  with 
corn-fodder,  and  a  hen  was  brooding  in  a  corner  of  the  best  room.  Having 
served  as  dwelling  and  castle,  it  embodies  the  economy  of  the  one  with  the 
security  of  the  other.  The  chimney  is  of  itself  a  tower;  the  floor  timbers  of 
the  upper  story  project  on  all  sides,  so  as  to  allow  it  to  overhang  the  lower. 
This  was  a  type  of  building  imported  from  England  by  the  early  settlers, 
common  enough  in  their  day,  and  of  which  specimens  are  still  extant  in  such 
of  our  older  towns  as  Boston,  Salem,  and  Marblehead.  Its  form  admitted, 
however,  of  a  good  defense.  The  walls  are  of  hewn  timber  about  six  inches 
thick,  and  bullet-proof.  On  the  north-east,  and  where  the  timbers  were  ten 
inches  thick,  they  have  rotted  away  under  their  long  exposure  to  the  weather. 
I  observed  a  loop-hole  or  two  that  had  not  been  closed  up,  and  that  the  roof 
frame  was  of  oak,  with  the  bark  adhering  to  it.1 

In  one  room  was  an  old  hand-loom ;  in  another  a  spinning-wheel  lay  over 
turned ;  and  in  the  fire-place  the  iron  crane,  blackened  with  soot,  was  still 
fixed  as  it  might  have  been  when  the  garrison  was  beset  in  '92.  Between 


1  Hutchinson  says:  "In  every  frontier  settlement  there  were  more  or  less  garrison  houses, 
some  with  a  flankart  at  two  opposite  angles,  others  at  each  corner  of  the  house ;  some  houses  sur 
rounded  with  palisadoes ;  others,  which  were  smaller,  built  with  square  timber,  one  piece  laid  hori 
zontally  upon  another,  and  loop-holes  at  every  side  of  the  house ;  and  besides  these,  generally  in 
any  more  considerable  plantation  there  was  one  garrison  house  capable  of  containing  soldiers  sent 
for  the  defense  of  the  plantation,  and  the  families  near,  whose  houses  were  not  so  fortified.  It  was 
thought  justifiable  and  necessary,  whatever  the  general  rule  of  law  might  be,  to  erect  such  forts, 
castles,  or  bulwarks  as  these  upon  a  man's  own  ground,  without  commission  or  special  license  there 
for." — "History  of  Massachusetts,"  vol.  ii.,  p.  67. 


140  THE  NEW  ENGLAND  COAST. 

the  house  and  the  road  is  the  Junkins's  family  burying-ground.  The  house 
attracts  many  curious  visitors,  though  it  lacks  its  ancient  warlike  accessories, 
its  lookouts,  palisades,  and  flankarts. 

A  fe\v  rods  farther  on,  in  descending  the  hill,  is  the  M'Intire  garrison.  It 
is  on  the  opposite  side  of  the  Berwick  road  from  the  house  through  which  I 
have  just  hurried  the  reader;  and,  except  that  a  newer  addition  has  been 
joined  to  the  garrison  part,  does  not  materially  differ  from  it.  Mr.  M'Intire, 
now  the  owner  of  both  houses,  showed  me  an  opening  in  the  floor  of  the  pro 
jection  through  which,  according  to  the  family  tradition,  boiling  water  was 
poured  upon  the  heads  of  any  who  might  try  to  force  an  entrance. 

It  has  been  supposed  that  these  two  garrisons  were  erected  as  early  as 
1640  or  1650.  As  no  motive  existed  for  building  such  houses  at  that  time, 
the  tradition  is  not  entitled  to  credit.  Few  of  the  Indians  were  possessed  of 
fire-arms,  as  the  sale  to  them  was  strictly  prohibited  in  the  English  colonies. 
The  digging  up  of  the  hatchet  by  the  eastern  Indians,  in  1676,  during  Philip's 
war,  probably  first  led  to  the  building  of  fortified  houses  in  all  the  sea-coast 
towns.  During  the  attack  of  1692,  the  four  garrisons  in  York  saved  the 
lives  of  those  they  sheltered,  while  fifty  of  the  defenseless  inhabitants  were 
killed  outright,  and  one  hundred  and  fifty  were  led  prisoners  to  Canada. 

It  is  not  my  purpose  to  pursue  farther  the  history  of  ancient  Agamenticus. 
The  state  of  the  settlement  five  years  after  its  destruction  by  the  Indians  ap 
pears  in  a  memorial  to  the  French  minister,  prepared  in  order  to  show  the 
feasibility  of  a  thorough  wiping  out  of  the  English  settlements  from  Boston 
to  Pemaquid : 

"  From  Wells  Bay  to  York  is  a  distance  of  five  leagues.  There  is  a  fort 
within  a  river.  All  the  houses  having  been  destroyed  five  years  ago  by  the 
Indians,  the  English  have  re-assembled  at  this  place,  in  order  to  cultivate  their 
lands.  The  fort  is  worthless,  and  may  have  a  garrison  of  forty  men." 

As  a  memorial  of  the  dark  days  when  settler  fought  with  savage,  the 
Junkins's  garrison-house  appeals  for  protection  in  its  decrepit  old  age.  Its 
frame  is  still  strong.  A  few  boards  and  a  kindly  hand  should  not  be  want 
ing  to  stay  its  ruin.  I  left  it  as  for  nearly  two  hundred  years  it  has  stood, 

"On  its  windy  site  uplifting  gabled  roof  and  palisade, 
And  rough  walls  of  unhewn  timber  with  the  moonlight  overlaid." 


PORTSMOUTH,  NEW   HAMPSHIRE,  FROM  KITTERY  BRIDGE. 


CHAPTER  X. 

AT   KITTERY    POINT,  MAINE. 

"  We  have  no  title-deeds  to  house  or  lands; 

Owners  and  occupants  of  earlier  dates 
From  graves  forgotten  stretch  their  dusty  hands, 
And  hold  in  mortmain  still  their  old  estates." 

LONGFELLOW. 

T  GUIS  XV.  said  to  Bouret,  the  financier,  "  You  are  indeed  a  singular  per- 
-*-^  son  not  to  have  seen  Marly !  Call  upon  me  there,  and  I  will  show  it  to 
you." 

Our  way  lies  from  Old  York  to  Kittery  Point.1  To  get  from  the  one  to 
the  other  you  must  pass  the  bridge  over  York  River,  built  in  1761.  It  inau 
gurated  in  Xew  England  the  then  novel  method  of  laying  the  bridge  super 
structure  on  a  frame-work  formed  of  wooden  piles  driven  into  the  bed  of  the 
river.  The  inventor  was  Major  Samuel  Sewall,  of  York,  whose  bridge  was 
the  model  of  those  subsequently  built  over  the  Charles,  Mystic,  and  Merri- 
mac. 

Kittery  Point  is  separated  from  Kittery  Foreside  by  Spruce  Creek.  It  is 
also  divided  from  Gerrish's  Island,  the  outermost  land  of  the  eastern  shore 


1  The  name  of  Kittery  Point  is  from  a  little  hamlet  in  England.  It  is  the  first  and  oldest  town 
in  the  State,  having  been  settled  in  1623.  Gorgeana,  settled  1624,  was  a  city  corporate,  and  not  a 
town.  Kitterv  first  included  North  and  South  Berwick  and  Eliot. 


142 


THE  NEW  ENGLAND   COAST. 


of  the  Piscataqua,  by  Chauncy's  Creek.  It  is  important  at  Kittery  Point 
to  get  used  to  the  names  of  Cutts,  Gerrish,  Sparhawk,  Pepperell,  Waldron, 
Chauncy,  and  Champernowne.  They  recur  with  remarkable  frequency. 

If  coming  from  Portsmouth,  the  visitor  will  first  traverse  the  village,  with 
its  quaint  little  church,  built  in  1714,  its  secluded  cemetery,  and  fine  old  elms. 
They  say  the  frame  of  the  meeting-house  was  hewn  somewhere  about  Dover, 
and  floated  down  the  stream.  There  are  few  older  churches  in  New  England, 
or  that  embody  more  of  its  ancient  homeliness,  material  and  spiritual.  Since 
I  was  there  it  has  been  removed  about  sixty  feet  northward,  and  now  fronts 
the  south,  entirely  changing  the  appearance  of  that  locality. 


NAVY-YARD,  KITTERY,  MAINE. 

Formerly,  in  leaving  the  church  door,  you  were  confronted  by  a  sombre  old 
mansion,  having,  in  despite  of  some  relics  of  a  former  splendor,  an  unmistak 
able  air  of  neglect  and  decay.  The  massive  entrance  door  hung  by  a  single 
fastening,  the  fluted  pilasters  on  either  side  were  rotting  away,  window  panes 
were  shattered,  chimney  tops  in  ruins,  the  fences  prostrate.  It  was  nothing 
but  a  wreck  ashore.  This  was  the  house  built  by  Lady  Pepperell,  after  the 
death  of  Sir  William.  Report  said  it  was  haunted;  indeed  I  found  it  so,  and 
by  a  living  phantom. 

Repeated  and  long-continued  knocking  was  at  length  answered  by  a  trem 
ulous  effort  from  within  to  open  the  door,  which  required  the  help  of  my  com 
panion  and  myself  to  effect.  I  shall  never  forget  the  figure  that  appeared  to 

us: 

"We  stood  and  gazed; 

Gazed  on  her  sunburned  face  with  silent  awe, 
Her  tattered  mantle  and  her  hood  of  straw." 

Poor  Sally  Cutts,  a  harmless  maniac,  was  the  sole  inhabitant  of  the  old 


AT  KITTERY  POINT,  MAINE.  143 

house ;  she  and  it  were  fallen  into  hopeless  ruin  together.  Her  appearance 
was  weird  and  witch-like,  and  betokened  squalid  poverty.  An  old  calash  al 
most  concealed  her  features  from  observation,  except  when  she  raised  her 
head  and  glanced  at  us  in  a  scared,  furtive  sort  of  way.  Yet  beneath  this 
wreck,  and  what  touched  us  keenly  to  see,  was  the  instinct  of  a  lady  of  gentle 
breeding  that  seemed  the  last  and  only  link  between  her  and  the  world. 
With  the  air  and  manner  of  the  drawing-room  of  fifty  years  ago  she 'led  the 
way  from  room  to  room. 

We  tracked  with  our  feet  the  snow  that  had  drifted  in  underneath  the  hall 
door.  The  floors  were  bare,  and  echoed  to  our  tread.  Fragments  of  the 
original  paper,  representing  ancient  ruins,  had  peeled  off  the  walls,  and  vandal 
hands  had  wrenched  away  the  pictured  tiles  from  the  fire-places.  The  upper 
rooms  were  but  a  repetition  of  the  disorder  and  misery  below  stairs.  * 

Our  hostess,  after  conducting  us  to  her  own  apartment,  relapsed  into  im 
becility,  and  seemed  little  conscious  of  our  presence.  Some  antiquated  fur 
niture,  doubtless  family  heir-looms,  a  small  stove,  and  a  bed,  constituted  %11 
her  worldly  goods.  As  she  crooned  over  a  scanty  fire  of  two  or  three  wet 
sticks,  muttering  to  herself,  and  striving  to  warm  her  withered  hands,  I 
thought  I  beheld  in  her  the  impersonation  of  Want  and  Despair. 

Her  family  was  one  of  the  most  distinguished  of  New  England,  but  a 
strain  of  insanity  developed  itself  in  her  branch  of  the  genealogical  tree.  Of 
three  brothers — John,  Richard,  and  Robert  Cutt  —  who,  in  1641,  emigrated 
from  Wales,  the  first  became  president  of  the  Province  of  New  Hampshire, 
the  second  settled  on  the  Isles  of  Shoals,  and  the  third  at  Kittery,  where  he 
became  noted  as  a  builder  of  ships. 

This  house  had  come  into  the  possession  of  Captain  Joseph  Cutts1  about 
the  beginning  of  the  century.  He  was  a  large  ship-owner,  and  a  successful 
and  wealthy  merchant.  Ruined  by  Mr.  Jefferson's  embargo  and  by  the  war 
of  1812,  he  lost  his  reason,  and  now  lies  in  the  village  church-yard.  Two  of 
his  sons  inherited  their  father's  blighting  misfortune:  one  fell  by  his  own 
hand  in  Lady  PepperelPs  bed-chamber.  Sally,  the  last  survivor,  has  joined 
them  within  a  twelvemonth. 


1  Captain  Joseph  Cutts  was  born  in  1764,  and  died  on  his  birthday  anniversary,  aged  ninety- 
seven.  He  married  a  granddaughter  of  President  Chauncy,  of  Harvard  College.  Sarah  Chaun- 
cy,  known  to  us  as  "Sally  Cutts,"  was  removed  during  her  last  illness  to  the  house  of  her  cousin, 
where  she  was  kindly  cared  for.  When  near  her  end  she  became  more  rational,  and  was  sensible 
of  the  attentions  of  her  friends.  She  died  June  30th,  1874.  Her  brother  Charles  was  hopelessly 
insane  forty-four  years,  and  often  so  violent  as  to  make  it  necessary  to  chain  him.  Joseph,  the 
other  brother,  entered  the  navy :  overtaken  by  his  malady,  he  was  sent  home.  Under  these  re 
peated  misfortunes,  added  to  the  care  of  her  father  and  brothers,  Sally's  reason  also  gave  way. 
The  town  allowed  a  small  sum  for  the  board  of  her  father  and  brothers,  and  her  friends  provided 
wood  and  clothing.  Her  house  even  was  sold  to  satisfy  a  Government  claim  for  duties,  owed  by 
her  father.  It  has  now  been  renovated,  and  is  occupied  by  Oliver  Cutts,  Esquire. 


144 


THE  NEW  ENGLAND  COAST. 


Poor  Sally  Cults !  She  rose  to  take  leave  of  us  with  the  same  ceremoni 
ous  politeness  which  had  marked  her  reception.  Her  slight  and  shrunken 
figure  was  long  in  my  memory,  her  crazy  buffet,  and  broken,  antiquated 
chairs,  to  which  she  clung  as  the  most  precious  of  earthly  possessions.  It 
was  one  of  her  hallucinations  to  be  always  expecting  the  arrival  of  a  messen 
ger  from  Washington  with  full  reparation  of  the  broken  fortunes  of  her  fam 
ily.  Some  charitable  souls  cared  for  her  necessities,  but  such  was  the  poor 
creature's  pride  that  artifice  was  necessary  to  effect  their  purpose.  Flitting 
through  the  deserted  halls  of  the  gloomy  old  mansion — dreading  the  stran 
ger's  approach,  the  gossip  of  the  neighborhood,  the  jibes  of  village  urchins — 
Sally  remained  its  mistress  until  summoned  to  a  better  and  kindlier  mansion. 
I  said  the  house  was  haunted,  and  I  believe  it. 

A  short  walk  beyond  the  cemetery  brings  you  up  with  Fort  M'Clary,1  its 
block-house,  loop-holed  for  musketry,  its  derricks,  and  general  disarray.  Not 


BLOCK-HOUSE  AND  FORT,  KITTERY  POINT. 

many  would  have  remembered  the  gallantry  of  Major  Andrew  M'Clary  f  at 
Bunker  Hill,  but  for  this  monument  to  his  memory.  The  site  has  been  forti 
fied  from  an  early  day  by  garrison-house,  stockade,  or  earth-work.  It  should 
have  retained  its  earliest  name  of  Fort  Pepperell.  John  Stark's  giant  com 
rade  might  have  been  elsewhere  commemorated. 

It  is  said  no  village  is  so  humble  but  that  a  great  man  may  be  born  in  it. 
Sir  William  Pepperell  was  the  great  man  of  Kittery  Point.  He  was  what  is 
now  called  a  self-made  man,  raising  himself  from  the  ranks  through  native 
genius  backed  by  strength  of  will.  Smollett  calls  him  a  Piscataquay  trader, 


1  My  appearance  within  Fort  M'Clary  caused  a  panic  in  the  garrison.  A  few  unimportant 
questions  concerning  the  old  works  were  answered  only  after  a  hurried  consultation  between  the 
sergeant  in  charge  and  the  head  workman.  The  Government  was  then  meditating  war  with  Spain, 
and  I  had  reason  to  believe  I  was  looked  upon  as  a  Spanish  emissary. 


AT  KITTERY  POINT,  MAINE. 


145 


with  little  or  no  education, and  utterly  unacquainted  with  military  operations. 
Though  contemptuous,  the  description  is  literally  true. 

Sir  William's  father  is  first  noticed  in  the  annals  of  the  Isles  of  Shoals. 
The  mansion  now  seen  near  the  Pepperell  Hotel  was  built  partly  by  him  and 
in  part  by  his  more  eminent  son.  The  building  was  once  much  more  exten 
sive  than  it  now  appears,  having  been,  about  twenty  years  ago,  shortened  ten 
feet  at  either  end.  Until  the  death  of  the  elder  Pepperell,  in  1734,  the  house 
was  occupied  by  his  own  and  his  son's  families.  The  lawn  in  front  reached 
to  the  sea,  and  an  avenue,  a  quarter  of  a  mile  in  length,  bordered  by  fine  old 
trees,  led  to  the  house  of  Colonel  Sparhawk,  east  of  the  village  church.  With 
its  homely  exterior  the  mansion  of  the  Pepperells  represents  one  of  the  great 
est  fortunes  of  colonial  New  England.  It  used  to  be  said  Sir  William  might 
ride  to  the  Saco  without  going  off  his  own  possessions.1 


SIR  WILLIAM  PEPPERELL'S  HOUSE,  KITTERY  POINT. 

There  is  hanging  in  the  large  hall  of  the  Essex  Institute,  at  Salem,  a  two- 
thirds  length  of  Sir  William  Pepperell,  painted  in  1751  by  Smibert,  when  the 
"baronet  was  in  London.  It  represents  him  in  scarlet  coat,  waistcoat,  and 
breeches,  a  smooth-shaven  face  and  powdered  periwig:  the  waistcoat,  richly 


1  The  house  was  also  occupied  at  one  time  as  a  tenement  by  fishermen.     It  exhibits  no  marks, 
either  inside  or  out,  of  the  wealth  and  social  consequence  of  its  old  proprietor. 

10 


146 


THE  NEW  ENGLAND  COAST. 


gold-embroidered,  as  was  then  the  fashion,  was  worn  long,  descending  almost 
to  the  knee,  and  formed  the  most  conspicuous  article  of  dress.  In  one  hand 
Sir  William  grasps  a  truncheon,  and  in  the  background  the  painter  has  de 
picted  the  siege  of  Louisburg.1 

Smollett  accredits  Auchmuty,  judge-advocate  of  the  Court  of  Admiralty 
of  New  England,  with  the  plan  of  the  conquest  of  Louisburg,  which  he  pro 
nounces  the  most  important  achievement  of  the  war.  Mr.  Hartwell  said  in 
the  House  of  Commons  that  the  colonists  took  Louisburg  from  the  French 
single-handed,  without  any  European  assistance — "  as  mettled  an  enterprise 

as  any  in  our  history,"  he  calls  it.  The 
honor  of  the  Louisburg  expedition  has 
also  been  claimed  for  James  Gibson,  of 
Boston,  and  Colonel  William  Vaughan, 
of  Damariscotta.  But  the  central  figures 
appear  to  have  been  Governor  William 
Shirley  and  Sir  William  Pepperell. a 

The  year  of  Louisburg  was  an  event 
ful  one,  for  all  Europe  was  in  arms.  The 
petty  German  princes  were  striving  for 
the  imperial  crown  vacant  by  the  death 
of  the  emperor,  Charles  VII.  France 
supports  the  pretensions  of  the  Grand 
Duke  of  Tuscany  with  a  powerful  army 
under  her  illustrious  profligate,  Maurice 
de  Saxe;  Austria  invades  Bohemia;  the 
old  Brummbar  swoops  down  upon  Sax 
ony,  and  his  cannon  growl  under  the 
walls  of  Dresden ;  the  Rhenish  frontiers,  Silesia,  Hungary,  and  Italy,  are  all 
ablaze. 

England  must  have  a  hand  in  the  fighting.  Lord  Chesterfield's  mission 
to  the  Hague,  the  Quadruple  Alliance  at  Warsaw,  are  succeeded  by  the 
stunning  blow  of  Fontenoy.  The  allied  army  recoiled,  and  drew  itself  to 
gether  under  the  walls  of  Brussels.  The  Duke  of  Cumberland  was  defeated 
by  a  sick  man.3 

It  was  at  this  moment  of  defeat  that  the  news  of  the  fall  of  Louisburg 
reached  the  allies.  The  Dunkirk  of  America  had  capitulated  to  a  "  trader  of 


SIR   WILLIAM   PEPPEKELL. 


1  Mr.  Longfellow  has,  at  Cambridge,  a  painting  by  Copley,  representing  two  children  in  a  park. 
These  children  are  William  Pepperell  and  his  sister,  Elizabeth  Royall  Pepperell.  children  of  the 
last  baronet. 

2  Both  were  made  colonels  in  the  regular  British  establishment ;  their  regiments,  numbered  the 
Fiftieth  and  Fifty-first  respectively,  were  afterward  disbanded. 

3  Marshal  Saxe,  unable  to  mount  his  horse,  was  carried  along  his  lines  in  a  litter. 


AT  KITTERY  POINT,  MAINE.  147 

Piscataquay."    It  put  new  life  into  the  beaten  army,  and  was  celebrated  with 
great  rejoicings  in  its  camps.1 

Among  those  who  served  with  distinction  under  Pepperell  were  Richard 
Gridley,  who  afterward  placed  the  redoubt  on  Bunker  Hill;  Wooster,  who 
fell  at  Norwalk ;  Thornton,  a  signer  of  our  Magna  Charta ;  and  Nixon  and 
Whiting,  of  the  Continental  army.  It  was  sought  to  give  the  expedition 
something  of  the  character  of  a  crusade.  George  Whitefield  furnished  for  its 
banner  the  motto, 

"Nil  Desperandum,  Christo  Duce" 

A  little  more  family  history  is  necessary  to  give  the  reader  the  entree  of 
the  four  old  houses  at  Kittery  Point. 

The  elder  Sir  William,  by  his  will,  made  the  son  of  his  daughter  Elizabeth 
and  Colonel  Sparhawk  his  residuary  legatee,  requiring  him,  at  the  same  time, 
to  relinquish  the  name  of  Sparhawk  for  that  of  Pepperell.  The  baronetcy, 
extinct  with  the  death  of  Sir  William,  was  revived  by  the  king  for  the  benefit 
of  his  grandson,  a  royalist  of  1775,  who  went  to  England  at  the  outbreak  of 
hostilities.  The  large  family  estates  were  confiscated  by  the  patiiots. 

The  tomb  of  the  Pepperells,  built  in  1734,  is  seen  between  the  road  and 
the  Pepperell  Hotel.3  When  it  was  repaired  some  years  ago,  at  the  instance 
of  Harriet  Hirst  Sparhawk,  the  remains  were  found  lying  in  a  promiscuous 
heap  at  the  bottom,  the  wooden  shelves  at  the  sides  having  given  way,  pre 
cipitating  the  coffins  upon  the  floor  of  the  vault.  The  planks  first  used  to 
close  the  entrance  had  yielded  to  the  pressure  of  the  feet  of  cattle  grazing  in 
the  common  field,  filling  the  tomb  with  rubbish.  About  thirty  skulls  were 
found  in  various  stages  of  decomposition.  A  crypt  was  built  in  a  corner,  and 
the  scattered  relics  carefully  placed  within.3 

Dr.  Eliot,  the  pioneer  among  American  biographers,  says  Dr.  Belknap  oft 
en  mentioned  to  him  that  his  desire  to  preserve  the  letters  of  Sir  William 
Pepperell  led  to  the  founding  of  the  Massachusetts  Historical  Society.  This 
object  does  not  seem  to  have  been  wholly  accomplished,  as  it  is  well  known 
the  baronet's  papers  have  become  widely  scattered.4 

Not  far  from  the  mansion  of  the  Pepperells  is  the  very  ancient  dwelling 
of  Bray,  whose  daughter,  Margery,  became  Lady  Pepperell.  It  was  long  be- 

1  The  year  1745  was  also  signalized  by  the  death  of  Pope  in  June,  and  of  the  old  Duchess  of 
Marlborough  in  October,  who  died  at  eighty-five,  immensely  rich,  and  "very  little  regretted  either 
by  her  own  family  or  the  world  in  general." — SMOLLETT. 

3  Mr.  E.  F.  Safford,  the  proprietor,  exercises  watch  and  ward  over  this  and  other  relics  of  the 
Pepperells  with  a  care  worthy  of  imitation  all  along  the  coast. 

8  Mr.  Sabine  notes  in  his  "Loyalists"  that  the  tomb,  when  entered  some  years  ago,  contained 
little  else  than  bones  strewed  in  confusion  about  its  muddy  bottom ;  among  them,  of  course,  the 
remains  of  the  victor  of  Louisburg,  deposited  in  it  at  his  decease  in  1759. 

4  The  best  biography  of  Sir  William  Pepperell  is  that  by  Dr.  Usher  Parsons. 


148 


THE   NEW  ENGLAND   COAST. 


fore  the  old  shipwright  made  up  his  mind  to  consent  to  match  his  daughter 
so  unequally.  This  house  is  considered  to  be  two  hundred  and  twenty-five 
years  old,  and  is  still  habitable.  Down  at  the  water-side  are  seen  the  rotting 
timbers  of  the  wharf  where  the  Pepperells,  father  and  son,  conducted  an  ex 
tensive  trade. 

A  little  east  of  the  hotel  and  the  pleasant  manse  below  the  river  makes  a 
noble  sweep,  inclosing  a  favorite  anchorage  for  storm  or  wind  bound  craft. 


KITTERY   POINT,  MAINE. 

Not  unfrequently  a  hundred  may  be  seen 'quietly  riding  out  a  north-easter  at 
snug  moorings.  At  such  times  this  harbor  and  Gloucester  are  havens  of  ref 
uge  for  all  coasters  caught  along  shore.  The  sight  of  the  fleet  getting  under 
way  with  the  return  of  fine  weather  is  worth  going  to  see. 

When  at  Kittery  Point  the  visitor  may  indulge  in  a  variety  of  agreeable 
excursions  by  land  or  water;  the  means  are  always  at  hand  for  boating  and 
driving,  and  there  is  no  lack  of  pleasant  rambles.  I  first  went  to  Gerrish's 


AT   KITTERY  POINT,  MAINE.  149 

Island  on  a  wild  November  day,  and  in  a  north-east  snow-storm.  I  never  en 
joyed  myself  better. 

In  the  first  place,  this  island  is  one  of  the  headlands  of  history  as  well  as 
of  the  Piscataqua.  It  was  conveyed  as  early  as  1636,  by  Sir  F.  Gorges,  to 
Arthur  Champernowne,  a  gentleman  of  Devon.1  The  island  was  to  take  the 
name  of  Darlington,  from  the  manor  of  the  Champernownes.2  In  this  indent 
ure  Brave  Boat  Harbor  is  mentioned.  The  Province  of  Maine  was  then  some 
times  called  New  Somersetshire. 

There  is  something  in  this  endeavor  of  all  the  promoters  of  New  England 
to  graft  upon  her  soil  the  time-honored  names  of  the  Old,  to  plant  with  her 
civilization  something  to  keep  her  in  loving  remembrance,  that  appeals  to  our 
protection.  These  names  are  historical  and  significant.  They  link  us  to  the 
high  renown  of  our  mother  isle.  No  political  separation  can  disinherit  us. 
I  think  the  tie  is  like  the  mystery  of  the  electric  wave  that  passes  under  the 
sea,  unseen  yet  acknowledged  of  all,  active  though  invisible. 

The  island,  with  many  contiguous  acres,  became  the  property  of  Francis, 
son  of  Arthur  Champernowne,  and  nephew  of  Sir  F.  Gorges,  who  is  buried 
there,  his  grave  distinguished  by  a  heap  of  stones.  Tradition  said  he  forbade 
in  his  last  testament  any  stone  to  be  raised  to  his  memory.3  In  the  hands 
of  subsequent  proprietors  the  island  was  called  Cntts's,  Fryer's,  and  Ger- 
rish's  Island.  It  is  usually  spoken  of  as  two  islands,  being  nearly  though 
not  quite  subdivided  by  Chauncy's  Creek.  The  venerable  Cutts's  farm-house 
on  the  shore  of  the  island  is  two  hundred  and  thirty  years  old  by  family  ac 
count. 

All  the  islands  lying  northward  of  the  ship  channel  belong  to  Kittery.4 
Many  of  them  have  interesting  associations.  Trefethrcn's,  the  largest,  pro 
jects  far  out  into  the  river,  and  is  garnished  with  the  earth-works  of  old  Fort 
Sullivan,  from  which  shot  might  be  pitched  with  ease  on  the  decks  of  invad 
ing  ships.  Fernald's,  now  Navy  Yard  Island,  became  in  1806  the  property 
of  the  United  States,  by  purchase  of  Captain  William  Dennett,  for  the  sum  of 
five  thousand  five  hundred  dollars. 

Badger's,  anciently  Langdon's  Island,  is  a  reminiscence  of  one  of  the  no- 


1  The  relation  in  Purchas,  vol.  iv.,  p.  1935,  of  the  voyage  of  Robert,  earl  of  Essex,  to  the  Azores 
in  1597,  has  a  supplementary  or  larger  relation,  written  by  Sir  Arthur  Gorges,  knight,  a  captain  in 
the  earl's  fleet  of  the  ship  Wast-Spite.     There  is  mention  of  a  Captain  Arthur  Champernowne, 
who  appears  to  have  sailed  with  the  admiral  in  this  expedition. 

2  The  father  of  James  Anthony  Froude,  the  historian,  was  rector  of  Dartington  ;  the  historian 
was  born  there. 

3  He  is  fully  recognized  as  a  personage  of  distinction  in  the  beginnings  of  Kittery.     Charles  W. 
Tattle  gives  him  a  touch  of  royal  blood.     I  failed  to  find  such  a  provision  in  his  own  draft  of  his 
will. 

4  They  are,  in  descending  the  river,  Badger's,  Navy  Yard,  Trefethren's,  or  Seavey's,  Clark's, 
and  Gerrish's  Island. 


150 


THE  NEW  ENGLAND  COAST. 


GOVERNOR  LANGDON'S  MANSION,  PORTSMOUTH. 


blest  of  the  old  Ro 
mans  of  the  revolu 
tionary  time.  His 
still  elegant  mansion 
adorns  one  of  the 
handsomest  streets  in 
Portsmouth.1  Wash 
ington,  when  there, 
considered  it  the  fin 
est  private  house  in 
the  town. 

Langdon  was  six 
feet  tall,  with  a  very 
noble  presence.  Duke 
Rochefoucauld  Lian- 
court  mentions  that 
he  had  followed  the 
sea  first  as  mate, 
then  as  master  of  a 
ship.  He  ultimately 
became  an  eminent 


merchant  and  ship-builder.  A  devoted  patriot,  he  was  one  of  the  leaders  in 
the  first  act  of  aggression  committed  by  the  Portsmouth  Whigs  against  the 
crown.  As  the  words  of  a  man  of  action  and  a  model  legislator  in  time  of 
invasion  by  a  foreign  enemy,  his  well-known  speech  to  the  New  Hampshire 
Assembly  is  worth  the  quoting.  This  is  his  manner  of  cutting  short  useless  de 
bate  :  "  Gentlemen,  you  may  talk  as  much  as  you  please  ;  but  I  know  the  en 
emy  is  upon  our  frontiers,  and  I  am  going  to  take  my  pistols  and  mount  my 
horse,  and  go  and  fight  in  the  ranks  of  my  fellow-citizens."  And  he  did  it. 
Yet  a  little  more  about  Langdon.  Chastellux  relates  that  when  on  his 

O 

way  to  Gates's  camp  he  was  followed  by  a  favorite  slave.  The  negro,  who 
beheld  the  energy  with  which  his  master  pressed  on,  without  other  repose 
than  could  be  snatched  in  the  woods,  said  to  him,  at  last, "  Master,  you  un 
dergo  great  hardships,  but  you  go  to  fight  for  liberty.  I  also  should  suffer 
patiently  if  I  had  the  same  liberty  to  defend."  "  Then  you  shall  have  it," 
said  John  Langdon ;  "from  this  moment  I  give  you  your  freedom." 

Continental  Agent  Langdon  became  the  superintendent  of  war  ships  or 
dered  here  by  Congress.  He  presided  at  the  building  of  the  Ranger,  the  Al 
liance,  and  the  America,  the  last  a  seventy-four  gun  ship,  generously  given 
to  Louis  XVI.  for  one  of  his  lost  on  our  coast.  Paul  Jones  was  much  here ; 
a  brave  braggart,  quarreling  with  Langdon  and  Congress,  writing  quires  of 


1  In  Pleasant,  near  Court  Street. 


AT  KITTERY  POINT,  MAINE.  151 

memorials,  little  esteemed  among  his  peers,  though  a  lion  on  his  own  quarter 
deck. 

Though  Langdon  was  a  member  elect  of  the  Old  Congress,  as  his  State 
stipulated  that  only  two  of  the  delegates  were  to  go  to  Philadelphia,  his  does 
not  appear  among  the  names  signed  to  the  Declaration.  Matthew  Thornton, 
elected  after  Langdon,  was  allowed  to  sign  when  he  took  his  seat  in  Novem 
ber.  Langdon  became  an  opponent  of  the  measures  and  administration  of 
Washington,  joining  with  Jefferson,  Pierce  Butler,  and  a  few  others  in  or 
ganizing  the  Republican  party  of  that  day.  They  had  five  votes  iu  the  Sen 
ate.  In  the  House  was  Andrew  Jackson,  a  member  from  Tennessee,  who  at 
tracted  little  attention,  though  he  voted  with  the  small  coterie  of  the  Upper 
House,  including  Langdon,  Butler,  and  Colonel  Burr. 

Jacob  Sheaffe,  who  in  his  day  carried  on  a  more  extensive  business  than 
any  other  merchant  in  Portsmouth,  became  the  successor  of  Langdon  as  Gov 
ernment  agent.  It  is  said  he  purchased  the  island  where  the  Navy  Yard  now 
is.  One  of  the  six  frigates  ordered  under  Washington's  administration  was 
begun  here.  We  had  voted  to  build  these  vessels  to  punish  the  Algerine 
corsairs ;  we  then  countermanded  them  ;  afterward  a  treaty  was  made  with 
these  pirates  by  which  they  were  to  have  a  new  frigate  of  thirty-two  guns, 
which  was  laid  down  at  Portsmouth. 

The  family  name  of  Sheaffe  was  once  much  more  familiar  in  New  England 
than  now.  It  was  of  Peggy  Sheaffe,  a  celebrated  Boston  beauty,  that  Baron 
Steuben  perpetrated  the  following  mot:  When  introduced  to  her  at  the  house 
of  Mrs.  Livingstone,  mother  of  the  chancellor,  the  baron  exclaimed,  in  his 
broken  English,  "  I  have  been  cautioned  from  my  youth  against  Mischief \  but 
had  no  idea  her  charms  were  so  irresistible." 

Kittery  is  mentioned  by  Josselyn  as  the  most  populous  of  all  the  planta 
tions  in  the  Province  of  Maine.  It  engrosses  the  left  bank  of  the  Piscataqua 
from  the  great  bridge  at  Portsmouth  to  the  sea.  The  booming  of  guns  at  the 
Navy  Yard  often  announces  the  presence  of  some  dignitary,  yet  none,  I  fancy, 
more  distinguished  than  Washington  have  set  foot  in  Kittery.  I  regret  he 
has  not  much  to  say  of  it,  but  more  of  the  fishing-party  of  which  he  was,  at 
the  moment,  a  member. 

"Having  lines,"  he  says,  "we  proceeded  to  the  fishing  banks  without 
the  harbor,  and  fished  for  cod,  but  it  not  being  a  proper  time  of  tide,  we 
caught  but  two."  The  impregnable  character  of  the  President  for  truthful 
ness  forbids  the  presumption  that  want  of  skill  had  aught  to  do  with  his  ill- 
luck. 

It  would  be  matter  for  general  regret  if  the  selectmen  of  Kittery  should 
again,  as  long  ago  happened,  be  presented  by  a  grand  jury  for  not  taking 
care  that  their  children  were  taught  their  catechism,  and  educated  according 
to  law.  The  number  of  steeples  and  school-houses  seen  by  the  way  indicates, 
in  this  respect,  a  healthy  public  opinion.  Kittery  church-yard  contains  many 


152  THE  NEW  ENGLAND   COAST. 

mute  appeals  to  linger  and  glean  its  dead  secrets.      Mrs.  Thaxter  sweetly 
sings  as  she  felt  the  story  of  one  of  these  mildewed  stones : 

"  Crushing  the  scarlet  strawberries  in  the  grass, 
I  kneel  to  read  the  slanting  stone.     Alas ! 
How  sharp  a  sorrow  speaks !     A  hundred  years 
And  more  have  vanished,  with  their  smiles  and  tears, 
Since  here  was  laid,  upon  an  April  day, 
Sweet  Mary  Chauncey  in  the  grave  away, 
A  hundred  years  since  here  her  lover  stood 
Beside  her  grave."    *     *    * 

I  found  both  banks  of  the  Piscataqua  charming.  The  hotels  at  Newcastle, 
Kittery,  Old  York,  etc.,  are  of  the  smaller  class,  adapted  to  the  comfortable 
entertainment  of  families ;  and  as  they  are  removed  from  the  intrusion  of 
that  disagreeable  constituent  of  city  life  known  over-seas  as  the  "  swell  mob," 
real  comfort  is  attainable.  They  are  not  faultless,  but  one  may  always  con 
fidently  reckon  on  a  good  bed,  a  polite,  accommodating  host,  and  well-pro 
vided  table. 


w— 


WHALE' S-BACK  LIGHT. 


CHAPTER  XL 

THE    ISLES    OF    SHOALS. 

"  O  warning  lights,  burn  bright  and  clear, 

Hither  the  storm  comes!     Leagues  away 
It  moans  and  thunders  low  and  drear — 
Burn  'til  the  break  of  day!" 

CELIA  TIIAXTER. 

ON  the  15th  of  July,  1605,  as  the  sun  was  declining  in  the  west,  a  little 
bark  of  fifteen  tons,  manned  by  Frenchmen,  was  standing  along  the 
coast  of  New  England,  in  quest  of  a  situation  to  begin  a  settlement.  The 
principal  personage  on  board  was  Pierre  du  Guast,  Sieur  de  Monts,  a  noble 
gentleman,  and  an  officer  of  the  household  of  Henry  IV.  His  commission  of 
lieutenant-o-eneral  bore  date  at  Fontainebleau  in  the  year  1603.  He  was  em- 


154 


THE  NEW  ENGLAND  COAST. 


PORTSMOUTH  AND   THE  ISLES  OF  SIIOALS. 


powered  by  it  to  col 
onize  Acadia  from 
the  fortieth  to  the 
forty-sixth  parallel, 
in  virtue  of  the  dis 
coveries  of  the  Tus 
can,  Verazzani.  It 
recited,  in  quaint 
old  French,  that  Du 
Guast  had  already 
made  several  voy 
ages  to  these  and 
other  neighboring 
countries,  of  which 
he  had  knowledge 
and  experience.1  The 
commission  likewise 
conferred  authority 

to  make  war  or  peace  with  the  peoples  inhabiting  the 
country  of  Acadia,  with  sole  power  to  traffic  in  skins  and 
furs  for  ten  years  in  the  Bay  of  St.  Clair  and  the  river 
of  Canada.  The  broad  autograph  of  Henry  and  the  great 
seal  of  yellow  wax  are  appended  to  the  parchment. 

On  board  the  bark,  besides  the  leader  of  the  expedi 
tion,  were  a  few  gentlemen  adventurers  and  twenty  sail 
ors.  The  name  of  De  Monts's  pilot  was  Champdore.2 
The  geographer  of  the  expedition  was  Samuel  Champlain. 
Accompanying  De  Monts,  as  guides  and  interpreters,  were 
two  natives,  Panounias  and  his  wife. 

Since  the  15th  of  June  De  Monts  had  been  minutely  examining  the  New 
England  coast  from  St.  Croix,  where  he  had  wintered,  to  near  the  forty-third 
parallel,  in  the  hope  of  finding  "a  place  more  suitable  for  habitation  and  of  a 
milder  temperature"  than  the  inhospitable  region  he  had  first  pitched  upon. 
The  greater  part  of  De  Monts's  colony  remained  at  the  Isle  of  St.  Croix. 

After  leaving  the  mouth  of  the  Saco,  and  looking  in  at  the  entrance  of 


1  "Et  en  la  connoissance  et  experience  qne  vons  avez  de  la  qualite,  condition  et  situation  dndit 
pais  de  la  Cadie,  pour  les  diverges  navigations,  voyages,  et  frequentations  que  vous  avez  fails  en  ces 


terres  et  autres  proches  et  circqnvoisines." 

a  Williamson  erroneously  calls  Champlain  the  pilot. 


THE  ISLES  OF  SHOALS.  155 

Kennebunk  River,  De  Monts,  still  keeping  as  close  in  as  was  prudent  with  the 
land,  which  Champlain  describes  as  flat  and  sandy  (platte  et  sabloneuse), 
found  himself  on  that  July  afternoon  in  presence  of  three  striking  land 
marks.1  Cape  Ann  bore  south,  a  quarter  east,  six  leagues  distant.  To  the 
west  was  a  deep  bay  into  which,  the  savages  afterward  told  him,  a  river 
emptied ;  and  in  the  offing  they  perceived  three  or  four  islands  of  fair  ele 
vation.  These  last,  historians  agree,  were  the  Isles  of  Shoals. 

Notwithstanding  the  isles  are  not  identified  on  either  of  Champlain's  maps 
(1612  and  1632),  it  is  no  longer  doubtful  that  De  Monts  made  them  out  nine 
years  before  Smith  saw  them,  though  the  latter  has  first  given  them  on  a 
map  a  locality  and  a  name.  But  I  take  Pring  to  have  been  the  first  to  men 
tion  them,  when,  two  years  before  De  Monts,  he  sighted  a  multitude  of  small 
islands  in  about  forty-three  degrees,  and  anchored  under  the  shelter  of  the 
greatest.8  Gosnold  must  have  seen  the  isles,  but  thought  them  hardly  worth 
entering  in  his  log.  Prince  Charles,  afterward  Charles  I.,  graciously  confirmed 
the  name  Smith  had,  in  1614,  given  the  isles.  Yet  he  has  little  or  no  title  to 
be  considered  their  discoverer,  and  has  left  no  evidence  that  he  ever  landed 
upon  them.  The  French,  Smith  relates,  had  two  ships  forty  leagues  to  the 
westward  (of  Monhegan)  that  had  made  great  trade  while  he  was  on  the 
coast.  Beyond  all  these,  the  Basque  shallop  seen  in  these  waters  by  Gosnold 
remains  a  nut  for  historians  to  crack. 

De  Poutrincourt's  expedition  of  1606  into  Massachusetts  Bay  was  the 
sequel  to  that  of  1605.  De  Monts,  a  heretic,  through  the  jealousy  of  rivals 
and  Jesuit  intrigue,  was  soon  deprived  of  the  privileges  with  which  he  had 
been  endowed  by  his  fickle  monarch.  In  this  his  experience  was  not  unlike 
that  of  Gorges  and  the  Council  of  Plymouth.  De  Monts  was  really  the 
head  of  a  commercial  company,  organized  by  Chauvin,  governor  of  Dieppe.3 
The  detail  of  his  voyage  along  the  New  England  coast  in  1605  is  the  first 
intelligible  record  to  be  found.  Shall  we  not,  at  last,  have  to  do  the  tardy 
justice  of  acknowledging  him  the  chief  and  guiding  spirit  of  the  expedi 
tion,  now  universally  referred  to  as  Champlain's?  The  latter  has  become 
the  prominent  figure,  while  Du  Guast  is  not  even  mentioned  in  some  of  our 
so-called  school  histories. 

Christopher  Levett  is  the  first  Englishman  to  give  an  account  of  the  isles 
worthy  of  the  name.  Its  brevity  may  be  advantageously  contrasted  with 
later  descriptions,  though  the  natural  features  remain,  in  many  respects,  the 
same.  He  says,  writing  seven  years  after  Captain  Smith  : 

1  A  little  book  I  have  seen  translates  rather  freely  in  making  Champlain  say  "and  on  the  west 
Ipswitch  Bay."     See  p.  122  for  Champlain's  exact  language. 

2  Pring  came  to  the  main-land  in  forty-three  and  a  half  degrees — his  farthest  point  westward  on 
this  voyage — and  worked  along  the  coast  to  the  south-west.     I  know  of  no  other  islands  between 
Cape  Ann  and  his  land-fall  answering  his  description. 

3  De  Monts  sailed  from  Havre  de  Grace  March  7th,  1604. 


156  THE  NEW  ENGLAND  COAST. 

"The  first  place  I  set  my  foot  upon  in  New  England  was  the  Isle  of 
Shoals,  being  islands  in  the  sea  about  two  leagues  from  the  main. 

"Upon  these  islands  I  neither  could  see  one  good  timber -tree  nor  so 
much  good  ground  as  to  make  a  garden. 

"The  place  is  found  to  be  a  good  fishing-place  for  six  ships,  but  more  can 
not  well  be  there,  for  want  of  convenient  stage  room,  as  this  year's  experience 
hath  proved." 

The  year  1623  is  the  earliest  date  I  have  seen  of  the  islands  being  occu 
pied  as  a  fishing  station.  Monhegan  was  earlier  known,  and  more  frequented 
by  English  vessels  for  this  purpose.  A  word  or  two  about  the  fishery  of 
those  days. 

Cabot  notices  the  cod  under  the  name  of  "  bacalo ;"  Jean  Alfonse  speaks 
of  the  "bacaillos;"  Captain  Uring  calls  it  "baccalew;"  the  Indian  name  was 
"tamwock."  Smith  says  the  fish  on  our  coast  were  much  better  than  those 
taken  at  Newfoundland,  which  he  styles  "  poor  John,"  a  nickname  ever  since 
current  up  the  Mediterranean.  One  of  his  ships,  in  1614,  loaded  with  dry 
fish  for  Spain,  where  the  cargo  brought  "  forty  ryalls,"  or  five  dollars,  the 
quintal.  Fifteen  or  eighteen  men,  by  his  relation,  took  with  the  hook  alone 
sixty  thousand  fish  in  a  month. 

Charlevoix  believed  this  fish  could  turn  itself  inside  out,  like  a  pocket. 
He  says  they  found  bits  of  iron  and  glass,  and  even  pieces  of  broken  pots,  in 
the  stomachs  of  fish  caught  on  the  Banks  of  Newfoundland;  and  adds  that 
some  people  believed  they  could  digest  them.  Josselyn  says  the  fishermen 
used  to  tan  their  sails  and  nets  with  hemlock-bark  to  preserve  them. 

Allusion  has  been  made  to  the  number  of  fishermen  frequenting  the  Grand 
Banks  in  1578.  Without  the  evidence  few  would  be  willing  to  believe  the 
fishery  had  attained  such  proportions  at  that  early  day,  on  a  coast  we  have 
been  accustomed  to  regard  as  almost  unknown.  It  certainly  goes  very  far 
toward  dispelling  illusions  respecting  the  knowledge  that  was  had  of  our 
own  shores  by  those  adventurous  "  toilers  of  the  sea." 

In  Captain  Richard  Whitbourne's  relation  of  his  voyages  and  observations 
in  Newfoundland  (Purchas,  vol.  iv.,  p.  1882),  he  says : 

"More  than  four  hundred  sail  of  fishing  ships  were  annually  sent'  to  the 
Grand  Banks  by  the  French  and  Portuguese,  making  two  voyages  a  year, 
fishing  winter  and  summer. 

"In  the  year  1615,  when  I  was  at  Newfoundland,"  he  adds,  "there  were 
then  on  that  coast  of  your  Majestie's  subjects  two  hundred  and  fiftie  saile  of 
ships,  great  and  small.  The  burthens  and  tonnage  of  them  all,  one  with  an 
other,  so  neere  as  I  could,  take  notice,  allowing  every  ship  to  be  at  least  three 
score  tun  (for  as  some  of  them  contained  lesse,  so  many  of  them  held  more), 
amounting  to  more  than  15,000  tunnes.  Now,  for  every  three-score  tun  bur 
then,  according  to  the  usual  manning  of  ships  in  those  voyages,  agreeing  with 
the  note  I  then  tooke,  there  are  to  be  set  doune  twentie  men  and  boyes;  by 


THE  ISLES  OF  SHOALS.  157 

which  computation  in  these  two  hundred  and  fiftie  saile  there  were  no  lesse 
than  five  thousand  persons." 

De  Poutrincourt,  writing  to  Paris  in  1618  from  Port  Royal,  estimates  the 
fishery  to  be  then  worth  a  "million,  cTor"  annually  to  France.  He  declares 
he  would  not  exchange  Canada  for  Peru  if  it  were  once  seriously  settled ;  and 
foreshadows  the  designs  of  the  English  on  New  France  as  soon  as  they  should 
have  made  themselves  strong  in  Virginia.  By  a  royal  edict  of  1669  the 
French  fishermen  of  New  France  were  allowed  to  land  their  fish  in  all  the 
ports  of  the  mother  country,  except  Havre,  free  of  duty. 

The  advantages  possessed  by  the  Isles  of  Shoals  were  deep  water,  with  a 
reasonably  secure  haven  for  ships,  free  from  molestation  by  the  savages,  while 
the  crews  were  engaged  in  taking  and  curing  their  fish.  To  this  ought  to  be 
added  their  nearness  to  the  best  fishing  grounds.  All  along  shore  the  islands 
were,  as  a  rule,  earlier  frequented  than  the  main-land.  Levett  says  (and  he 
thought  it  a  fatal  objection)  the  ships  that  fished  at  Cape  Ann  in  1623  had 
to  send  their  boats  twenty  miles  to  take  their  fish,  and  the  masters  were  in 
great  fear  of  not  making  their  voyages.  "  I  fear  there  hath  been  too  fair  a 
gloss  set  upon  Cape  Ann,"  writes  Levett. 

La  Hontan,  writing  from  Quebec  in  1683,  says  of  the  cod-fishery  on  the 
Banks  of  Newfoundland  :  "  You  can  scarce  imagine  what  quantities  of  cod 
fish  were  catch'd  there  by  our  seamen  in  the  space  of  a  quarter  of  an  hour ; 
for  though  we  had  thirty-two  fathom  water,  yet  the  hook  was  no  sooner  at 
the  bottom  than  the  fish  was  catch'd ;  so  that  they  had  nothing  to  do  but  to 
throw  in  and  take  up  without  interruption.  But,  after  all,  such  is  the  mis 
fortune  of  this  fishery  that  it  does  not  succeed  but  upon  certain  banks,  which 
are  commonly  past  over  without  stopping.  However,  as  we  were  plentiful 
ly  entertain'd  at  the  cost  of  these  fishes,  so  such  of  'em  as  continued  in  the 
sea  made  sufficient  reprisals  on  the  corpse  of  a  captain  and  of  several  sol 
diers  who  died  of  the  scurvy,  and  were  thrown  overboard  three  or  four  days 
after." 

It  is  worthy  of  note  that  the  Trial,  the  first  vessel  built  in  Boston,  took  a 
lading  offish  to  Bilboa.  in  1643,  that  were  sold  to  good  profit.  From  thence 
she  took  freight  for  Malaga,  and  brought  home  wine,  oil,  fruit,  iron,  etc.  She 
was  then  sent  to  trade  with  La  Tour  and  Acadia.  The  Trial  was  of  about  a 
hundred  and  sixty  tons  burden.1'  In  the  year  1700  there  were  two  hundred 
New  England  vessels  loaded  in  Acadia  with  fish.  The  cargoes  were  taken 
to  Boston,  and  there  distributed  to  different  parts  of  the  world. 

After  the  isles  became  permanently  inhabited  the  fishery  continued  pros 
perous,  and  by  1730  three  or  four  vessels  were  annually  loaded  for  Bilboa. 
Before  the  Revolution  seven  or  eight  schooners  hailed  from  the  islands,  but 
from  this  period  the  fishery  dates  its  decay.  In  1800  only  shore-fishing  was 

1  Winthrop's  "Journal." 


158 


THE  NEW  ENGLAND  COAST. 


pursued,  which  employed  thirteen  whale-boats  similar  to  those  now  in  use, 
and  the  best  of  all  boats  in  a  sea. 

Besides  the  fish  itself,  the  liver  of  the  cod,  as  is  well  known,  is  saved  for 
the  oil  it  contains.  Hake  sounds  are  of  greater  value  than  the  fish,  being 
extensively  used  in  the  manufacture  of  isinglass.  The  efficacy  of  the  cod's 
liver  was  early  known.  "Their  livers  and  sounds  eaten,"  says  an  old  writer, 
"  is  a  good  medicine  for  to  restore  them  that  have  melted  their  grease." 

The  interest  with  which  the  obscure  lives  of  these  islanders  and  the  clus 
ter  of  inhospitable  rocks  on  which  they  dwell  are  invested  is  remarkable 
enough.  It  may  be  in  a  measure  owing  to  the  irregular  intercourse  former 
ly  held  with  the  main-land,  and  to  the  consequently  limited  knowledge  of 
them.  And  it  is  heightened  in  no  small  degree  by  the  mystery  of  a  resi 
dence  in  the  midst  of  the  sea,  where  all  ties  with  the  adjacent  continent 
would  seem  to  be  dissevered.  But  if  the  open  Polar  Sea  be  a  fact  and 
not  a  myth,  the  continents  are  themselves  but  larger  islands  with  more  ex 
panded  horizons. 

I  happened  one  day  to  be  in  Portsmouth.     Entre  nous,  if  you  want  to 

__  _  be  esteemed  there 
you  must  say 
"Porchmouth,"as 
even  the  letter 
ed  of  that  ilk  do. 
The  morning  air 
had  been  fresh 
ened  and  sweet 
ened  by  copious 
showers;  little 
pools  stood  in  the 
streets,  and  every 

blade  of  grass  was  tipped  with  a  crystal  rain-drop.  Old  Probabilities  had 
foretold  clearing  weather.  Every  thing  seemed  propitious,  except  that  it 
continued  to  rain  "  pitchforks,"  with  the  tines  downward,  and  that  the  wind 
was  steadily  working  round  to  the  eastward.  As  the  struggle  between  foul 
and  fair  seemed  at  length  to  incline  to  the  latter,  I  went  down  to  the  wharf 
to  find  the  packet  for  the  Shoals  had  already  unmoored,  and  was  standing 
across  the  river.  Unloosing  a  dory  that  was  lying  conveniently  near,  I 
boarded  the  Marie  as  she  came  about,  thus  putting  myself  en  rapport  with 
the  Shoals  by  means  of  this  .little  floating  bridge,  or  island,  as  you  may  please 
to  have  it. 

It  being  the  first  day  of  summer,  the  passengers  were  so  few  as  to  be 
easily  taken  in  at  a  glance.  They  were  chiefly  workmen  employed  on  the 
great  hotel  at  Star  Island,  or,  as  they  chose  to  style  themselves,  convicts 
going  into  servitude  on  a  desert  rock:  so  cheaply  did  they  hold  the  attrac- 


SHAG  AND  MINGO  ROCKS,  DUCK  ISLAND. 


THE  ISLES  OF  SHOALS.  159 

tions  of  the  isles.  Perhaps  one  or  two  of  the  passengers  had  no  more  busi 
ness  at  the  islands  than  myself. 

It  is  not  easy  to  have  a  more  delightful  sail  than  down  the  Piscataqua,  or 
to  find  a  more  beautiful  stream  when  its  banks  are  clothed  in  green.  It  has 
often  been  described,  and  may  again  be,  without  fear  of  exhausting  its  capa 
bilities.  The  movement  of  shipping  to  and  fro;  the  shifting  of  objects  as  you 
glide  by  them,  together  with  the  historic  renown  with  which  its  shores  are 
incrusted,  fill  the  eye  while  exciting  the  imagination.  A  few  miles  above 
Portsmouth  the  river  expands  into  a  broad  basin,  which  receives  the  volume 
of  tide,  and  then  pours  it  into  the  sea  between  narrow  banks. 

We  gained  the  narrows  of  the  river  with  Pierce's  Island  on  the  right  and 
Seavey's  on  the  left,  each  crowned  with  grass-grown  batteries  thrown  up  in 
the  Revolution  to  defend  the  pass.  Here  the  stream  is  not  a  good  rifle-shot 
in  breadth,  and  moves  with  increased  velocity  within  the  contracted  space, 
the  swirl  and  eddying  of  the  current  resembling  the  boiling  of  a  huge  cal 
dron.  Its  surface  is  ringed  with  miniature  whirlpools,  and  at  flood-tide  the 
mid-channel  seems  lifted  above  the  level  of  the  river,  as  I  have  seen  the 
mighty  volume  of  the  Missouri  during  its  annual  rise.  It  is  not  strange  the 
place  should  have  received  the  anathemas  of  mariners  from  immemorial  time, 
or  boast  a  name  so  unconventional  withal  as  Pull-and-be-d — d  Point. 

Clearing  the  narrows,  we  left  behind  us  the  city  steeples,  the  big  ship- 
houses,  lazy  war  ships,  and  tall  chimneys  on  Kittery  side.  The  wind  being 
light,  the  skipper  got  up  a  stay-sail  from  the  fore-hatch.  As  it  was  bent  to 
the  halyards,  a  bottle  labeled  "  ginger  ale,"  but  smelling  uncommonly  like 
schnapps,  rolled  out  of  its  folds.  We  were  now  slowly  forging  past  New 
castle,  or  Great  Island.  The  sun  came  out  gloriously,  lighting  up  the  spire 
of  the  little  church  at  Kittery  Point  and  the  masts  of  vessels  lying  at  anchor 
in  the  roads. 

Glancing  astern,  I  remarked  four  wherries  coming  down  at  a  great  pace 
with  the  ebb.  They  kept  directly  abreast  of  each  other,  as  if  moved  by  a 
single  oarsman,  while  the  rowers  talked  and  laughed  as  they  might  have  done 
on  the  pavement  ashore.  I  could  see  by  the  crates  piled  in  the  stern  of  each 
boat  that  they  were  lobstermen,  going  outside  to  look  after  their  traps.  As 
they  went  by  they  seemed  so  many  huge  water-spiders  skimming  the  sur 
face  of  the  river. 

Fort  Constitution,  with  its  dismantled  walls  and  frowning  port-holes,  is 
now  passed,  and  Whale's  Back,  with  twin  light-houses,  shows  its  ledges  above 
water.  We  open  the  mouth  of  the  river  with  Odiorne's  Point  on  the  star 
board  and  Gerrish's  Island  on  the  port  bow,  the  swell  of  ocean  lifting  our 
little  bark,  and  making  her  courtesy  to  the  great  deep. 

The  islands  had  appeared  in  view  when  we  were  off  Newcastle,  the  hotel 
on  Star  Island,  where  it  loomed  like  some  gray  sea-fortress,  being  the  most 
conspicuous  object.  As  we  ran  off  the  shore,  the  "  cape  of  the  main-land"  and 


160  THE  NEW  ENGLAND  COAST. 

the  "cul-de-sac"  of  Charaplain  came  out,  and  fixed  themselves  where  he  had 
seen  them.  One  by  one  the  islands  emerged  from  the  dark  mass  that  involved 
the  whole,  and  became  individuals.  The  wind  dying  away  off  Duck  Island,  I 
was  fain  to  take  an  oar  in  the  whale-boat  towing  astern.  We  rowed  along 
under  Appledore  into  the  little  haven  between  that  island  and  Star,  with  no 
sound  but  the  dip  of  our  oars  to  break  the  stillness,  and  beached  our  boat 
as  the  evening  shadows  were  deepening  over  a  stormy  sea. 

There  had  been  a  striking  sunset.  Great  banks  of  clouds  were  massed 
above  the  western  horizon,  showing  rifts  of  molten  gold  where  the  sun  burst 
through,  which  the  sea,  in  its  turn,  reflected.  As  I  looked  over  toward  White 
Island,  the  lamps  were  lighted  in  the  tower,  turning  their  rays  hither  and 
thither  over  a  blackness  that  recalled  Poe's  sensuous  imagery  of  lamp-light 
gloating  over  purple  velvet.  The  weather-wise  predicted  a  north-easter,  and 
I  went  to  bed  with  the  old  sea  "  moaning  all  round  about  the  island." 

I  passed  my  first  night,  and  a  rude  one  it  was,  on  Star  Island.  When  I 
arose  in  the  morning  and  looked  out  I  fancied  myself  at  sea,  as  indeed  I  was. 
The  ocean  was  on  every  side,  the  plash  of  the  waters  being  the  last  sound 
heard  at  night  and  the  first  on  waking.  I  saw  the  sun  rise  over  Smutty 
Nose  through  the  same  storm-clouds  in  which  it  had  set  at  evening.  I  am 
an  early  riser,  but  even  before  I  was  astir  a  wherry  crossed  the  little  harbor 
my  window  overlooked. 

The  islands  lie  in  two  States,  and  are  seven  in  number.  Duck  Island, 
the  most  dangerous  of  the  group  ;  Appledore,  sometimes  called  Hog  Island ; 
Smutty  Nose,  or  Haley's,  and  Cedar,  belong  to  Maine;  Star,  White,  and  Lon 
doner's,  or  Lounging  Island,  are  in  New  Hampshire.  Appledore  is  the  largest, 
and  Cedar  the  smallest.  In  one  instance  I  have  known  Star  called  Staten 
Island,  though  it  was  formerly  better  known  as  Gosport,  the  name  of  its  fish 
ing  village,  whose  records  go  back  to  1731.  Counting  Malaga,  a  little  islet 
attached  to  Smutty  Nose  by  a  breakwater,  and  there  are  eight  islands  in 
the  cluster.  They  are  nine  miles  south-east  of  the  entrance  of  the  Piscataqua 
and  twenty-one  north-east  from  Newburyport  Light.  The  harbor,  originally 
formed  by  Appledore,  Star,  and  Haley's  Islands,  was  made  more  secure  by  a 
sea-wall,  now  much  out  of  repair,  from  Smutty  Nose  to  Cedar  Island.  The 
roadstead  is  open  to  the  south-west,  and  is  indifferently  sheltered  at  best. 
Between  Cedar  and  Star  is  a  narrow  passage  used  by  small  craft,  through 
which  the  tide  runs  as  in  a  sluice-way.  The  group  is  environed  with  several 
dangerous  sunken  rocks.  Square  Rock  is  to  the  westward  of  Londoner's; 
White  Island  Ledge  south-west  of  that  isle  ;  Anderson's  Ledge  is  south-east 
of  Star  Island;  and  Cedar  Island  Ledge  south  of  Smutty  Nose.1 


1  Star  Island  is  three-fourths  of  a  mile  long  and  half  a  mile  wide;  White  Island  is  also  three- 
fourths  of  a  mile  in  length.  It  is  a  mile  and  three  quarters  from  Star  Island.  Londoner's  is  five- 
eighths  of  a  mile  in  length,  and  one-eighth  of  a  mile  from  Star  Island.  Duck  Island  is  seven- 


THE   ISLES  OF  SHOALS.  161 

The  name  of  the  Isles  of  Shoals  is  first  mentioned  by  Christopher  Levett, 
in  his  narrative  of  1623.  The  mariners  of  his  day  must  have  known  of  the 
description  and  the  map  of  Smith,  but  they  seem  to  have  little  affected  the 
name  he  gave  the  islands.  It  would  not  be  unreasonable  to  infer  that  the 
group  was  known  by  its  present  name  even  before  it  was  seen  by  Smith,  and 
that  his  claims  were  of  little  weight  with  those  matter-of-fact  fishermen. 
Some  writers  have  made  a  difficulty  of  the  meaning  of  the  name,  attributing 
it  to  the  shoals,  or  schools,  offish  seen  there  as  everywhere  along  the  coast  at 
certain  seasons  of  the  year.  East  of  the  islands,  toward  the  open  sea,  there 
is  laid  down  on  old  charts  of  the  Province  an  extensive  shoal  called  Jeffrey's 
Ledge,  named  perhaps  for  one  of  the  first  inhabitants  of  the  isles,  and  extend 
ing  in  the  direction  of  the  coast  from  the  latitude  of  Cape  Porpoise  to  the 
southward  of  the  Shoals.  On  either  side  of  this  shallow,  which  is  not  of  great 
breadth,  are  soundings  in  seventy  fathoms,  while  on  the  ledge  the  lead  brings 
up  coarse  sand  in  thirty,  thirty-five,  and  forty-five  fathoms.  The  presence 
of  this  reef  tends  to  strengthen  the  theory  that  these  islands,  as  well  as  the 
remarkable  system  of  Casco  Bay,  once  formed  part  of  the  main-land.  The 
earlier  navigators  who  approached  the  coast,  cautiously  feeling  their  way 
with  the  lead,  soon  after  passing  over  this  shoal  came  in  sight  of  the  islands, 
which,  it  is  believed,  served  to  mark  its  presence.  Jeffrey's  Ledge  has  been 
a  fishing-ground  of  much  resort  for  the  islanders  since  its  first  discovery.1 

To  whatever  cause  science  may  attribute  the  origin  of  the  isles,  I  was 
struck,  at  first  sight,  with  their  resemblance  to  the  bald  peaks  of  a  submerged 
volcano  thrust  upward  out  of  the  waters,  the  little  harbor  being  its  crater. 
The  remarkable  fissures  traversing  the  crust  of  the  several  members  of  the 
group,  in  some  cases  nearly  parallel  with  the  shores,  strengthens  the  impres 
sion.  In  winter,  or  during  violent  storms,  the  savagery  of  these  rocks,  ex 
posed  to  the  full  fury  of  the  Atlantic,  and  surrounded  by  an  almost  perpetual 
surf,  is  overwhelming.  You  can  with  difficulty  believe  the  island  on  which 
you  stand  is  not  reeling  beneath  your  feet. 

After  exploring  the  shore  and  seeing  with  his  own  eyes  the  deep  gashes 
in  its  mailed  garment,  the  basins  hollowed  out  of  granite  and  flint,  and  the 
utter  wantonness  in  which  the  sea  has  pitched  about  the  fragments  it  has 
wrested  from  the  solid  rock,  the  futility  of  words  in  which  to  express  this 
confusion  comes  home  to  the  spectator.  Mr.  Hawthorne's  idea  greatly  re- 
eighths  of  a  mile  in  length,  and  three  miles  from  Star  Island  meeting-house.  Appledore  is  seven- 
eighths  of  a  mile  from  Star,  and  a  mile  in  length.  Haley's,  or  Smutty  Nose,  is  a  mile  in  length, 
and  five-eighths  of  a  mile  from  Star  Island  meeting-house.  Cedar  Island  is  one-third  of  a  mile 
long,  and  three-eighths  of  a  mile  distant  from  the  meeting-house.  The  whole  group  contains  some 
thing  in  excess  of  six  hundred  acres. 

1  The  term  "Shoals  of  Isles"  seems  rather  far-fetched,  and  scarcely  significant  to  English  sail 
ors  familiar  with  the  hundred  and  sixty  islands  of  the  Hebrides.  I  can  find  no  instance  of  these 
isles  having  been  so  called. 

11 


162  THE  NEW  ENGLAND  COAST. 

sembles  the  Indian  legend  of  the  origin  of  Naiitucket.  "As  much  as  any 
thing  else,"  he  says,  "  it  seems  as  if  some  of  the  massive  materials  of  the 
world  remained  superfluous  after  the  Creator  had  finished,  and  were  careless 
ly  thrown  down  here,  where  the  millionth  part  of  them  emerge  from  the  sea, 
and  in  the  course  of  thousands  of  years  have  become  partially  bestrewn  with 
a  little  soil." 

The  old  navigators  stigmatized  Labrador  as  the  place  to  which  Cain  was 
banished,  no  vegetation  being  produced  among  the  rocks  but  thorns  and  moss. 
What  a  subject  White  Island  would  make  for  a  painting  of  the  Deluge ! 

A  Finlander  with  whom  I  parleyed  told  me  his  country  could  show  ruder 
places  than  these  isles,  and  that  the  winters  there  were  longer  and  colder. 
Parson  Tucke  used  to  say  the  winters  at  the  Shoals  were  "a  thin  under- 
waistcoat,  warmer"  than  on  the  opposite  main-land.  Doubtless  the  Orkneys 
or  Hebrides  equal  these  islands  in  desolateness  and  wildness  of  aspect,  but 
they* could  scarce  surpass  them. 

The  islands  are  so  alike  in  their  natural  features  that  a  general  descrip 
tion  of  one  will  apply  to  the  rest  of  the  cluster;  and  hence  the  first  explored, 
so  far  as  its  crags,  sea-caverns,  and  galleries  are  in  question,  is  apt  to  make 
the  strongest  impression.  But  after  closer  acquaintance  each  of  the  seven  is 
found  to  possess  attractions,  peculiarities  even,  of  its  own.  They  grow  upon 
you  and  charm  away  your  better  judgment,  until  you  find  sermons,  or  what  is 
better,  in  stones,  and  good  health  everywhere.  The  change  comes  over  you 
imperceptibly,  and  you  are  metamorphosed  for  the  time  into  a  full-fledged 
"  Shoaler,"  ready  to  climb  a  precipice  or  handle  an  oar  with  any  native — I 
was  about  to  say  of  the  soil — but  that  would  be  quite  too  strong  a  figure 
for  the  Shoals. 

The  little  church  on  Star  Island  is  usually  first  visited.  When  I  was  be 
fore  here,  it  was  a  strikingly  picturesque  object,  surmounting  the  islands,  and 
visible  in  clear  weather  twenty  miles  at  sea.  It  is  now  dwarfed  by  the  ho 
tel,  and  is  perhaps  even  no  longer  a  sea-mark  for  the  fishermen.  Such  quaint 
little  turrets  have  I  seen  in  old  Dutch  prints.  The  massive  walls  are  of 
rough  granite  from  the  abundance  of  the  isle.  Its  roof  and  tower  are  of 
wood,  and,  being  here,  what  else  could  it  have  but  a  fish  for  its  weather- 
vane  ?  The  bell  was  used,  while  I  was  there,  to  call  the  workmen  to  their 
daily  labor;  but  its  tones  were  always  mournful,  and  vibrated  with  strange 
dissonance  across  the  sea. 

The  whitewash  the  interior  walls  had  received  was  plentifully  bespattered 
upon  the  wooden  benches.  In  a  deeply  recessed  window  one  of  the  tiny  sea- 
birds  that  frequent  the  islands  was  beating  the  panes  with  its  wings.  I  gave 
the  little  fellow  his  liberty,  but  he  did  not  stay  for  thanks.  The  church  is 
not  more  than  ten  paces  in  length  by  six  in  breadth,  yet  was  sufficient,  no 
doubt,  for  all  the  church-goers  of  the  seven  islands.  Its  foundations  are  uoon 
a  rock,  and  it  is  altogether  a  queer  tiling  in  an  odd  place. 


THE  ISLES  OF   SHOALS. 


163 


After  the  desertion  of  Appledore,  a  meeting-house  was  erected  on  Star 
Island,  twenty-eight  by  forty-eight  feet,  with  a  bell.  Mr.  Moody,  of  Salis 
bury,  Massachusetts,  was,  in  1706,  called  to  be  the  first  minister  there.  In 
1730  he  was  succeeded  by  Rev.  John  Tucke. 

Mather  relates  many  anecdotes  of  Rev.  John  Brock,  one  of  the  early  min 
isters  at  the  islands,  in  illustration  of  the  efficacy  of  prayer.  The  child  of  one 
Arnold,  he  says,  lay  sick,  so  nearly  dead  that  those  present  believed  it  had 
really  expired ;  "but  Mr.  Brock,  perceiving  some  life  in  it,  goes  to  prayer,  and 
in  his  prayer  uses  this  expression,  *  Lord,  wilt  thou  not  grant  some  sign  before 
we  leave  prayer  that  thou  wilt  spare  and  heal  this  child  ?  We  can  not  leave 
thee  'til  we  have  it.'  The  child  sneez'd  immediately." 


MEETING-HOUSE,  STAB   ISLAND.1 

Going  round  the  corner  of  the  church,  I  came  upon  a  coast  pilot,  peering 
through  his  glass  for  the  smoke  of  a  steamer,  cable-freighted,  that  had  been 
momentarily  expected  from  Halifax  for  a  \veek.  His  trim  little  boat  lay  in 
the  harbor  below  us  at  her  moorings.  It  was,  he  said,  a  favorite  station  from, 
which  to  intercept  inward-bound  vessels.  The  pilot  told  me,  with  a  quiet 
chuckle,  of  a  coaster,  manned  by  raw  Irish  hands,  that  had  attempted  in  broad 
day  to  run  into  the  harbor  over  the  breakwater  from  Haley's  to  Cedar  isl 
and.  They  did  not  get  in,  he  said  ;  but  it  being  a  full  tide  and  smooth  sea, 
the  mole  only  knocked  off  the  cut-water  of  their  craft. 

Behind  the  meeting-house  is  the  little  school-house,  in  as  dire  confusion 


1  Built  in  1800,  through  the  efforts  of  Dudley  A.  Tynp,  of  Newburyport,  Massachusetts.  Ded 
icated  in  November  by  Rev.  Jedediah  Morse,  father  of  S.  F.  B.  Morse.  A  school  was  for^a  time 
kept  in  it. 


164  THE  NEW  ENGLAND  COAST. 

when  I  saw  it  as  any  bad  boy  could  have  wished.  The  windows  were  shat 
tered,  chairs  and  benches  overturned,  and  a  section  of  rusty  stove-pipe  hung 
from  the  ceiling,  while  the  fragment  of  a  wall  map,  pressed  into  service  as  a 
window-curtain,  was  being  scanned  through  the  dingy  glass  by  an  urchin 
with  a  turn  for  geography. 

East  of  the  church  is  a  row  of  cottages,  the  remnant  of  the  fishing  village, 
serving  to  show  what  it  was  like  before  modern  innovations  had  swept  the 
moiety  of  ancient  Gosport  from  the  face  of  the  island.  Each  had  a  bird- 
house  on  the  peak  of  its  gable.  There  was  the  semblance  of  regularity  in 
the  arrangement  of  these  cottages,  the  school-house  leading  the  van;  but 
they  were  nearly  or  quite  all  unpainted,  these  homely  abodes  of  a  rude  people. 

On  looking  around,  you  perceived  walled  inclosures,  some  of  them  con 
taining  a  little  earth  patched  with  green  grass,  but  all  thickly  studded  with 
boulders.  Is  it  possible,  you  ask,  that  such  a  waste  should  ever  be  the  cause 
of  heart-burnings,  or  know  the  name  of  bond,  mortgage,  or  warranty?  Little 
did  these  impoverished  islanders  dream  the  day  would  come  when  their  ster 
ile  rocks  would  be  eagerly  sought  after  by  the  fortunate  possessors  of  abun 
dance. 

Star  Island  formerly  afforded  pasturage  for  a  few  sheep  and  cows.  There 
is  a  record  of  a  woman  who  died  at  Gosport  in  1795,  aged  ninety.  She  kept 
two  cows,  fed  in  winter  on  hay  cut  by  her  in  summer  with  a  knife  among  the 
rocks.  The  cows  were  taken  from  her  by  the  British  in  1775,  and  killed,  to 
the  great  grief  of  old  Mrs.  Pusley.  Formerly  there  was  more  vegetation 
here,  but  at  odd  times  the  poor  people  have  gathered  and  burned  for  fuel 
fully  half  the  turf  on  the  island.  It  is  written  in  the  book  of  records  that 
the  soil  of  the  islands  is  gradually  decreasing,  and  that  a  time  would  come 
when  the  dead  must  be  buried  in  the  sea  or  on  the  main-land. 

From  the  year  1775  until  1820,  the  few  inhabitants  who  remained  on  the 
islands  lived  in  a  deplorable  condition  of  ignorance  and  vice.  Some  of  them 
had  lost  their  ages  for  want  of  a  record.  Each  family  was  a  law  to  itself. 
The  town  organization  was  abandoned.  Even  the  marriage  relation  was  for 
gotten,  and  the  restraints  and  usages  of  civilized  life  set  at  naught.  Some 
of  the  more  debased,  about  1790,  pulled  down  and  burned  the  old  meeting 
house,  which  had  been  a  prominent  landmark  for  seamen ;  but,  says  the  rec 
ord,  "the  special  judgments  of  Heaven  seem  to  have  followed  this  piece  of 
wickedness  to  those  immediately  concerned  in  it."  The  parsonage -house 
might  have  fared  as  ill,  had  it  not  been  floated  away  to  Old  York  by  Mr. 
Tucke's  son-in-law. 

Rev.  Jedediah  Morse  has  entered  in  the  record  two  marriages  solemnized 
by  him  during  the  time  he  was  on  the  islands,  with  the  following  remarks: 
"  The  two  couples  above  mentioned  had  been  published  eight  or  ten  years 
ago  (but  not  married),  and  cohabited  together  since,  and  had  each  a  number 
of  children. had  been  formerly  married  to  another  woman ;  she  had 


THE  ISLES  OF  SHOALS. 


165 


left  him,  and  cohabited  with  her  uncle,  by  whom  she  has  a  number  of  chil 
dren.  No  regular  divorce  had  been  obtained.  Considering  the  peculiar  de 
ranged  state  of  the  people  on  these  islands,  and  the  ignorance  of  the  parties, 
it  was  thought  expedient,  in  order  as  far  as  possible  to  prevent  future  sin,  to 
marry  them."1 


THE   GRAVES,  WITH   CAPTAIN   JOHN   SMITH'S   MONUMENT,  STAR   ISLAND. 

It  is  perhaps  as  well  the  visitor  should  be  his  own  guide  about  the  islands, 
leaving  it  to  chance  to  direct  his  footsteps.  After  an  inspection  of  the  more 
prominent  objects,  such  as  may  be  taken  in  at  a  glance  from  the  little  church, 
I  wandered  at  will,  encountering  at  every  few  steps  some  new  surprise.  Some 
one  says,  if  we  seek  for  pleasure  it  is  pretty  sure  to  elude  our  pursuit,  coming 
oftener  to  us  unawares,  and  the  more  unexpected  the  higher  the  gratification. 
It  was  in  some  such  mood  I  stumbled,  to  speak  literally,  on  the  old  burial- 
place  of  the  islands.  I  am  aware  that  one  does  not,  as  a  rule,  seek  enjoyment 
in  a  grave-yard ;  but  I  have  ever  found  an  unflagging  interest  in  deciphering 
the  tablets  of  a  buried  city  or  hamlet.  These  stones  may  be  sententious  or 
loquacious,  pompous  or  humble,  and  sometimes  grimly  merry. 

1  For  more  than  a  century  previous  to  the  Revolution  the  islands  were  prosperous,  containing 
from  three  to  six  hundred  souls.  In  1800  there  were  three  families  and  twenty  persons  on  Smutty 
Nose :  fifteen  families  and  ninety-two  persons  on  Star  Island,  alias  Gosport ;  eleven  dwellings  and 
ten  fish-houses  on  the  latter,  and  three  decent  dwellings  on  the  former.  At  this  time  there  was 
not  an  inhabitant  on  Appledore,  alias  Hog  Island. 


166  THE  NEW  ENGLAND   COAST. 

Our  German  friends  call  the  church-yard  "  God's  Field."  Here  are  no  in 
scriptions,  except  on  the  horizontal  slabs  of  Tucke  and  Stephens.  There  is  no 
difference  between  the  rough  stones  protruding  from  the  ground  and  the  frag 
ments  strewn  broadcast  about  the  little  house-lots.  So  far  as  this  inclosure  is 
concerned,  the  annals  of  the  hamlet  are  as  a  closed  book.  The  instinct  which 
bids  you  forbear  treading  on  a  grave  is  at  fault  here.  It  requires  sharp  eyes 
and  a  close  scrutiny  to  discover  that  some  effort  has  been  made  to  distinguish 
this  handful  of  graves  by  head  and  foot  stones;  that  some  are  of  greater  and 
some  of  lesser  length ;  or  that  the  little  hollows  and  hillocks  have  their  secret 
meaning. 

The  two  shepherds  lie  at  the  head  of  their  little  fold,  in  vaults  composed 
of  the  rude  masses  found  ready  at  hand.  For  fear  their  inscriptions  might 
one  day  be  effaced,  I  transcribed  them  : 

In  Memory  of 

THE  REV.  JOSIAH  STEPHENS, 
A  faithful  Instructor  of  Youth,  and  pious 

Minister  of  Jesus  Christ. 

Supported  on  this  Island  by  the 

Society  for  Propagating  the  Gospel, 

who  died  July  2,  1804. 

Aged  64  years. 

Likewise  of 
MRS.  SUSANNAH  STEPHENS, 

his  beloved  Wife, 

who  died  Dec.  7,  1810. 

Aged  54  years. 


Underneath 

are  the  Remains  of 

THE  REV.  JOHN  TUCKE,  A.M. 

He  graduated  at  Harvard  College,  A. D.  1723, 

Was  ordained  here  July  26,  1732, 

And  died  Aug.  12,  1773. 

JEt.  72. 

He  was  affable  and  polite  in  his  manner, 

Amiable  in  his  disposition, 
Of  great  piety  and  integrity,  given  to  hospitality, 

Diligent  and  faithful  in  his  pastoral  office. 
Well  learned  in  History  and  Geography,  as  well  as 

General  Science, 
And  a  careful  Physician  both  to  the  bodies 

and  the  souls  of  his  People. 
Erected  1800.  In  Memory  of  the  Just. 


THE  ISLES  OF  SHOALS.  167 

For  two-score  years  this  pious  man  labored  in  his  stony  vineyard.  His 
parishioners  agreed  to  give  him  a  quintal  per  man  of  winter  fish — their  best. 
They  covenanted  to  carry  his  wood  from -the  landing  home  for  him.  With 
this  he  wa&  content.  He  was  their  minister,  teacher,  physician,  and  even 
kept  the  accounts  of  a  little  store  in  a  scrupulously  exact  way.  I  have  been 
poring  over  his  old-time  chirography,  clear-cut  and  beautiful  as  copper-plate. 
There  are  the  good  old  English  names  of  Ruth,  Nabby,  and  Judy,  of  Betty, 
Patsey,  and  Love.  We  get  a  glimpse  of  their  household  economy  in  the  por 
ringers,  pewter  lamps,  and  pint-pots ;  the  horn  combs,  thread,  tape,  and  end 
less  rows  of  pins  for  women-folk ;  the  knitting-needles  that  clicked  by  the 
fireside  in  long  winter  nights,  while  the  lads  were  away  on  Jeffrey's  Ledge. 

From  here  I  wended  my  way  to  Smith's  monument,  erected  in  1864,  a  tri 
angular  shaft  of  marble,  rising  eight  or  ten  feet  above  a  craggy  rock.  It  is 
placed  on  a  pedestal  of  rough  stone,  and  protected  by  a  railing  from  vandal 
hands.  Its  situation  on  one  of  the  highest  eminences  of  Star  Island  has  ex 
posed  the  inscription  to  the  weather,  until  it  is  become  difficult  to  decipher. 
The  three  sides  of  the  pillar  are  occupied  by  a  lengthy  eulogium  on  this  hero 
of  many  adventures, 

Of  moving  accidents  by  flood  and  field ; 

Of  hair-breadth  scapes  i'  the  imminent  deadly  breach." 

Like  Temple  Bar  of  old,  the  monument  is  crowned  with  heads — those  of 
the  three  Moslems  slain  by  Smith,  and  seen  on  his  scutcheon,  as  given  by 
Stow,  where  they  are  also  quartered.  I  know  of  no  other  instance  of  decapi 
tated  heads  being  set  up  in  New  England  since  King  Philip's  was  struck  off 
and  stuck  on  a  pike  at  Plymouth,  in  1676.  Two  of  the  heads  had  fallen 
down,  and  the  third  seemed  inclined  to  follow.  Then  the  monument  will  be 
as  headless  as  the  doughty  captain's  tombstone  in  the  pavement  of  St.  Sepul 
chre's,  worn  smooth  by  many  feet.  In  brief,  the  three  Turks'  heads  stick  no 
better  than  the  name  given  by  Smith  to  the  islands  off  Cape  Ann — after  they 
had  been  named  by  De  Monts. 

Smith  says  he  had  six  or  seven  charts  or  maps  of  the  coast  so  unlike  each 
other  as  to  do  him  no  more  good  than  waste  paper.  He  gives  credit  to  Gos- 
nold  and  Weymouth  for  their  relations. 

A  few  rods  south-east  of  the  old  burying-ground  is  a  sheltered  nook,  in 
which  are  three  little  graves,  wholly  concealed  by  dwarf  willows  and  wild 
rose-bushes.  They  are  tenanted  by  three  children  —  "Jessie,"  two  years; 
"Millie,"  four  years;  and  "Mittie,"  seven  years  old — the  daughters  of  Rev. 
George  Beebe,  some  time  missionary  to  these  isles.  Under  the  name  of  the 
little  one  last  named  are  these  touching,  tearful  words:  "I  don't  want  to  die, 
but  I'll  do  just  as  Jesus  wants  me  to."  A  gentle  hand  has  formed  this  re 
treat,  and  protected  it  with  a  wooden  fence.  While  I  stood  there  a  song 
bird  perched  above  the  entrance  and  poured  forth  his  matin  lay.  There  is  a 
third  burial-place  on  the  harbor  side,  but  it  lacks  interest. 


168  THE  NEW  ENGLAND  COAST. 

Another  historic  spot  is  the  ruined  fort,  on  the  west  point  of  the  island, 
overlooking  the  entrance  to  the  roadstead.  Its  contour  may.be  traced,  and 
a  little  of  the  embankment  of  one  face  remains.  The  well  was  filled  to  the 
curb  with  water.  It  once  mounted  nine  four-pounder  cannon,  but  at  the  be 
ginning  of  the  Revolution  was  dismantled,  and  the  guns  taken  to  Newbury- 
port.  I  suppose  the  inhabitants  for  a  long  time  to  have  neglected  precau 
tions  for  defense,  as  Colonel  Romer,  in  his  report  to  the  Lords  of  Trade,  about 
1699,  makes  no  mention  of  any  fortification  here.  One  of  its  terrible  four- 
pounders  would  not  now  make  a  mouthful  for  our  sea-coast  ordnance. 

Continuing  rny  walk  by  the  shore,  I  came  to  the  cavern  popularly  known 
as  Betty  Moody's  Hole.  It  is  formed  by  the  lodgment  of  masses  of  rock,  so 
as  to  cover  one  of  the  gulches  common  to  the  isle.  Here,  says  tradition,  Betty 
concealed  herself,  with  her  two  children,  while  the  Indians  were  ravaging  the 
isles  and  carrying  many  females  into  captivity.  The  story  goes  that  the 
children,  becoming  frightened  in  the  cavern,  began  to  cry,  whereat  their  in 
human  mother,  in  an  excess  of  fear,  strangled  them  both  ;  others  say  she  was 
drowned  here.  The  affair  is  said  to  have  happened  during  Philip's  War.  I 
do  not  find  it  mentioned  by  either  Mather  or  Hubbard.1  At  times  during 
the  fishing  season  there  was  hardly  a  man  left  upon  the  islands,  a  circum 
stance  well  known  to  the  Indians. 

A  memoir  extracted  from  the  French  archives  gives  a  picture  of  the 
Isles  in  1702,  when  an  attack  appears  to  have  been  meditated.  "The  Isles 
de  Chooles  are  about  three  leagues  from  Peskatoue  to  the  south-south-east 
from  the  embouchure  of  the  river,  where  a  great  quantity  of  fish  are  taken. 
These  are  three  isles  in  the  form  of  a  tripod,  and  at  about  a  musket-shot  one 
from  the  other."  *  *  *  "There  are  at  these  three  islands  about  sixty  fishing 
shallops,  manned  each  by  four  men.  Besides  these  are  the  masters  of  the 
fishing  stages,  and,  as  they  are  assisted  by  the  women  in  taking  care  of  the 
fish,  there  may  be  in  all  about  two  hundred  and  eighty  men ;  but  it  is  neces 
sary  to  observe  that  from  Monday  to  Saturday  there  are  hardly  any  left  on 
shore,  all  being  at  sea  on  the  fishing-grounds." 

Taking  note  of  the  ragged  fissures,  which  tradition  ascribes  to  the  day 


1  1691.  A  considerable  body  of  Eastern  Indians  came  down  from  the  interior,  with  the  inten 
tion  of  sacking  the  Isles  of  Shoals,  but  on  August  4th  came  upon  some  English  forces  at  Maquoit, 
under  Captain  March,  and  had  a  fight  with  them.  This  prevented  their  proceeding,  and  saved  the 
Shoals. — "  Magnalia,"  vol.  xi.,  p.  611. 

1692.  Governor  Fletcher  examined  three  deserters,  or  renegadoes,  as  he  calls  them,  from  Que 
bec,  who  came  before  him  September  23d.  They  said  two  men-of-war  had  arrived  at  Quebec,  and 
were  fitting  out  for  an  expedition  along  the  coast,  "with  a  design  to  fall  on  Wells,  Isle  of  Shoals, 
Piscataqua,  etc." — "  New  York  Colonial  Documents,"  vol.  iii.,  p.  855. 

1724.  After  the  Indians  had  cut  off  Captain  Winslow  and  thirteen  of  his  men  in  the  River  St. 
George,  encouraged  by  this  success,  the  enemy  made  a  still  greater  attempt  by  water,  and  seized 
two  shallops  at  the  Isles  of  Shoals. — HDTCHINSON'S  "Massachusetts,"  vol.  ii.,  p.  307. 


THE  ISLES  OF  SHOALS. 


169 


of  the  Crucifixion, 
I  clambered  down 
one  of  the  rocky 
gorges  from  which 
the  softer  forma 
tion  has  been  eat 
en  out  by  the 
consuming  appe 
tite  of  the  waves. 
Sometimes  the  de 
scent  was  made 
easy  by  irregular 
steps  of  trap-rock, 
and  again  a  flying 
leap  was  necessa 
ry  from  stone  to 
stone.  The  per 
pendicular  walls 
of  the  gorge  rose 
near  fifty  feet  at 
its  outlet,  at  the 
shore.  It  was  a  GORGE,  STAB  ISLAND. 

relief  to  emerge  from  the  dripping  sides  and  pent-up  space  into  the  open  air. 
The  Flume,  on  Star  Island,  is  a  fine  specimen  of  the  intrusion  of  igneous  rock 
among  the  harder  formation. 

If  you  would  know  what  the  sea  can  do,  go  down  one  of  these  gulches  to 
the  water's  edge  and  be  satisfied.  I  could  not  find  a  round  pebble  among 
the  debris  of  shattered  rock  that  lay  tumbled  about;  only  fractured  pieces  of 
irregular  shapes.  Those  rocks  submerged  by  the  tide  were  blackened  as  if 
by  fire,  and  shagged  with  weed.  Overhead  the  precipitous  cliffs  caught  the 
sun's  rays  on  countless  glittering  points,  the  mica  with  which  they  are  so 
plentifully  bespangled  dazzling  the  eye  with  its  brilliancy.  Elsewhere  they 
were  flint,  of  which  there  was  more  than  enough  to  have  furnished  all  Europe 
in  the  Thirty  Years'  War,  or  else  granite.  Looking  up  from  among  the  abat- 
tis  which  girds  the  isle  about,  you  are  confronted  by  masses  of  overhanging 
rocks  that  threaten  to  detach  themselves  from  the  cliff  and  bury  you  in 
their  ruins. 

It  is  not  for  the  timid  to  attempt  a  ramble  among  the  rocks  on  the  At 
lantic  side  at  low  tide.  He  should  be  sure-footed  and  supple-jointed  who  un 
dertakes  it,  with  an  eye  to  estimate  the  exact  distance  where  the  incoming 
surf-wave  is  to  break.  The  illusions  produced  in  the  mind  by  the  great 
waves  that  roll  past  are  not  the  least  striking  sensations  experienced.  The 
speed  with  which  they  press  in,  and  the  noise  accompanying  their  passage 


170  THE  NEW  ENGLAND   COAST. 

through  the  gullies  and  rents  of  the  shore,  contribute  to  make  them  seem 
much  larger  than  they  really  are.  It  was  only  by  continually  watching  the 
waves  and  measuring  their  farthest  reach  that  I  was  able  to  await  one  of 
these  curling  monsters  with  composure ;  and  even  then  I  could  not  avoid 
looking  suddenly  round  on  hearing  the  rush  of  a  breaker  behind  me ;  and 
ever  and  anon  one  of  greater  volume  destroyed  all  confidence  by  bursting  far 
above  the  boundaries  the  mind  had  assigned  for  its  utmost  limits. 

Nothing  struck  me  more  than  the  idea  of  such  mighty  forces  going  to 
pure  waste.  A  lifting  power  the  Syracusan  never  dreamed  of  literally  throw 
ing  itself  away  !  An  engine  sufficient  to  turn  all  the  machinery  in  Christen 
dom  lying  idle  at  our  very  doors.  What  might  not  be  accomplished  if  Old 
Neptune  would  put  his  shoulder  to  the  wheel,  instead  of  making  all  this  mag 
nificent  but  useless  pother! 

I  noticed  that  the  waves,  after  churning  themselves  into  foam,  assumed 
emerald  tints,  and  caught  a  momentary  gleam  of  sapphire,  melting  into  ame; 
thyst,  during  the  rapid  changes  from  the  bluish-green  of  solid  water  to  its 
greatest  state  of  disintegration.  The  same  change  of  color  has  been  observed 
in  the  Hebrides,  and  elsewhere. 

The  place  that  held  for  me  more  of  fascination  and  sublimity  than  others 
was  the  bluff  that  looks  out  upon  the  vast  ocean.  I  was  often  there.  The 
swell  of  the  Atlantic  is  not  like  the  long  regular  roll  of  the  Pacific,  but  it 
beats  with  steady  rhythm.  The  grandest  effects  are  produced  after  a  heavy 
north-east  blow,  when  the  waves  assume  the  larger  and  more  flattened  form 
known  as  the  ground-swell.  I  was  fortunate  enough  to  stand  on  the  cliff 
after  three  or  four  days  of"  easterly  weather"  had  produced  this  effect.  Such 
billows  as  poured  with  solid  impact  on  the  rocks,  leaping  twenty  feet  in  the 
air,  or  heaped  themselves  in  fountains  of  boiling  foam  around  its  base,  give  a 
competent  idea  of  resistless  power !  The  shock  and  recoil  seemed  to  shake 
the  foundations  of  the  island. 

Upon  a  shelf  or  platform  of  this  cliff  a  young  lady-teacher  lost  her  life 
in  September,  1848.  Since  then  the  rock  on  which  she  was  seated  has  been 
called  "Miss  Underbill's  Chair."  Other  accidents  have  occurred  on  the  same 
spot,  insufficient,  it  would  seem,  to  prevent  the  foolhardy  from  risking  their 
lives  for  a  seat  in  this  fatal  chair. 

There  are  circumstances  that  cast  a  melancholy  interest  around  the  fate 
of  Miss  Underbill.  In  early  life  she  had  been  betrothed,  and  the  banns,  as 
was  then  the  custom,  had  been  published  in  the  village  church.  Her  father, 
a  stern  old  Quaker,  opposed  the  match,  threatening  to  tear  down  the  marriage 
intention  rather  than  see  his  daughter  wed  with  one  of  another  sect.  Wheth 
er  from  this  or  other  cause,  the  suitor  ceased  his  attentions,  and  not  long  after 
took  another  wife  in  the  same  village. 

The  disappointment  was  believed  to  have  made  a  deep  impression  on  a 
girl  of  Miss  Underbill's  "strength  of  character.  She  was  a  Methodist,  deeply 


THE   ISLES  OF  SHOALS.  171 

imbued  with  the  religious  zeal  of  that  denomination.  Hearing  from  one  who 
had  been  at  the  Isles  of  Shoals  that  the  people  were  in  as  great  need  of  a 
missionary  as  those  of  Burmah  or  of  the  Gold  Coast,  it  became  an  affair  of 
conscience  with  her  to  go  there  and  teach. 

She  came  to  the  islands,  and  applied  herself  with  ardor  to  the  work  before 
her,  a  labor  from  which  any  but  an  enthusiast  would  have  recoiled.  It  is  as 
serted  that  no  spot  of  American  soil  contained  so  debased  a  community  as 
this. 

It  was  her  habit  every  pleasant  day,  at  the  close  of  school,  to  repair  to 
the  high  cliff  on  the  eastern  shore  of  Star  Island,  where  a  rock  conveniently 
placed  by  nature  became  her  favorite  seat.  Here,  with  her  Bible  or  other 
book,  she  was  accustomed  to  pass  the  time  in  reading  and  contemplation. 
She  was  accompanied  on  her  last  visit  by  a  gentleman,  erroneously  thought 
to  have  been  her  lover,  who  ventured  on  the  rock  with  her.  A  tidal  wave  of 
unusual  magnitude  swept  them  from  their  feet.  The  gentleman  succeeded  in 
regaining  his  foothold,  but  the  lady  was  no  more  seen. 

Search  was  made  for  the  body  without  success.  A  wreek  after  the  occur 
rence  it  was  found  on  York  Beach,  where  the  tide  had  left  it.  There  was  not 
the  least  disorder  in  the  ill-fated  lady's  dress ;  the  bonnet  still  covered  her 
head,  the  ear-rings  were  in  her  ears,  and  her  shawl  was  pinned  across  her 
breast.  In  a  word,  all  was  just  as  when  she  had  set  out  for  her  walk.  The 
kind-hearted  man  who  found  the  poor  waif  took  it  home,  and  cared  for  it  as  if 
it  had  been  his  own  dead.  An  advertisement  caught  the  eye  of  Miss  Under- 
hilPs  brother.  She  was  carried  to  Chester,  New  Hampshire,  her  native  place, 
and  there  buried. 

Notwithstanding  the  humble  surroundings  of  her  home,  Miss  Underbill 
was  a  person  of  superior  and  striking  appearance.  Her  face -was  winning 
and  her  self-possessed  manner  is  still  the  talk  of  her  old-time  associates. 
I  have  heard,  as  a  sequel  to  the  school-teacher's  story,  that  some  years  after 
the  fatal  accident  her  old  suitor  came  to  the  Isles,  and,  while  bathing  there, 
was  drowned.  The  recovery  of  the  body  of  the  lady  uninjured  seems  little 
short  of  miraculous,  and  confirms  the  presence  of  a  strong  under-tow,  as  I  had 
suspected  on  seeing  the  floats  of  the  lobster-men  moored  within  a  few  feet  of 
the  rocks. 

Schiller  may  have  stood,  in  imagination,  on  some  such  crag  as  this  when 
his  wicked  king  flung  his  golden  goblet  into  the  mad  sea,  and  with  it  the  life 
of  the  hapless  stripling  who  plunged,  at  his  challenge,  down  into 

"The  endless  and  measureless  world  of  the  deep." 

In  a  neighboring  ravine  I  found  a  spring  of  fresh  water,  though  rather 
brackish  to  the  taste ;  and  in  the  more  sheltered  places  were  heaps  of  mussel- 
shells,  the  outer  surface  of  a  beautiful  purple.  They  look  better  where  they 
are  than  in  my  cabinet,  though  the  lining  of  those  I  secured  have  an  enamel 


172  THE  NEW  ENGLAND  COAST. 

of  mother-of-pearl.  Another  remarkable  feature  I  observed  were  the  depos 
its  of  gravel  among  the  crevices;  but  I  saw  no  flint  among  the  water-worn 
boulders  wedged,  as  if  by  a  heavy  pressure,  in  fissures  of  the  rocks.  I  re 
marked  also  the  presence  of  a  poor  schistus  intersecting  the  strata  here  and 
there.  Some  of  it  I  could  break  off  with  my  hands. 

Another  delightful  ramble  is  on  the  harbor  side,  from  the  old  fort  round 
to  CaswelPs  Peak  or  beyond.  Passing  by  the  little  hand-breadth  of  sandy 
beach  where  the  dories  may  land,  once  paved,  the  chronicles  tell  us,  many 
feet  deep  with  fish-bones,  I  observed  with  pleasure  the  green  oasis  spread  out 
between  the"  hotel  and  the  shore.  The  proprietor  seemed  resolved  that  the 
very  rocks  should  blossom,  and  already  "a  garden  smiled"  above  the  flint. 

There  is  a  sight  worth  seeing  from  the  cupola  of  the  hotel;  of  the  White 
Hills,  and  Agamenticus,  with  the  sands  of  Rye,  Hampton,  and  Squam  stretch 
ing  along  shore.  I  could  see  the  steeples  of  Portsmouth  and  of  Newbury- 
port,  the  bluff  at  Boar's  Head,  and  the  smoke  of  a  score  of  inland  villages. 
Following  with  the  eye  the  south  coast  where  it  sweeps  round  Ipswich  Bay 
one  sees  Cape  Ann  and  Thatcher's  Island  outlying;  the  gate-way  of  the  busy 
bay  beyond,  into  which  all  manner  of  craft  were  pressing  sail.  Northward 
were  Newcastle,  Kittery,  and  York,  and  farther  eastward  the  lonely  rock  of 
Boon  Island.  Shoreward  is  Appledore,  with  the  turret  of  its  hotel  visible 
above;  and  right  below  us  the  little  harbor  so  often  a  welcome  haven  to  the 
storm-tossed  mariner.1 

Most  visitors  to  the  islands  are  familiar  with  the  terrible  story  of  the 
wreck  of  the  Nottingham  galley,  of  London,  in  the  year  1710.  She  was 
bound  into  Boston,  and  having  made  the  land  to  the  eastward  of  the  Piscat- 
aqua,  shaped  her  course  southward,  driven  before  a  north-east  gale,  accom 
panied  with  rain,  hail,  and  snow.  For  ten  or  twelve  days  succeeding  they 
had  no  observation.  On  the  night  of  the  llth  of  December,  while  under  easy 
sail,  the  vessel  struck  on  Boon  Island. 

With  great  difficulty  the  crew  gained  the  rocks.  The  ship  having  imme 
diately  broken  up,  they  were  able  to  recover  nothing  eatable,  except  three 
small  cheeses  found  entangled  among  the  rock- weed.  Some  pieces  of  the 
spars  and  sails  that  came  ashore  gave  them  a  temporary  shelter,  but  every 

1  Mountains  seen  off  the  coast :  Agamenticus,  twelve  miles  north  of  the  entrance  of  the  Piscat- 
aqua ;  three  inferior  summits,  known  as  Frost's  Hills,  at  a  less  distance  on  the  north-west.  In  New 
Hampshire  the  first  ridge  is  twenty  or  thirty  miles  from  sea,  in  the  towns  of  Barrington,  Notting 
ham,  and  Rochester — the  summits  known  as  Teneriffe,  Saddleback.  Tuckaway,  etc.  Their  general 
name  is  the  Blue  Hills.  Beyond  these  are  several  detached  summits  —  Mount  Major,  Moose 
Mountain,  etc. ;  also  a  third  range  farther  inland,  with  Chocorua,  Ossipee,  and  Kearsarge.  In  the 
lofty  ridge  separating  the  waters  of  the  Merrimac  and  the  Connecticut  is  Grand  Monadnock,  twen 
ty-two  miles  east  of  the  Connecticut  River ;  thirty  miles  north  of  this  is  Sunapee,  and  forty-eight 
farther,  Moosehillock.  The  ranges  then  trend  away  north-east,  and  are  massed  in  the  White 
Hills. 


THE   ISLES  OF  SHOALS.  173 

thing  else  had  been  carried  away  from  the  island  by  the  strong  drift.  In  a 
day  or  two  the  cook  died.  Day  by  day  their  sufferings  from  cold  and  hun 
ger  increased.  The  main-land  being  in  full  view  before  them,  they  built  a 
boat  and  got  it  into  the  water.  It  was  overset,  and  dashed  in  pieces  against 
the  rocks.  One  day  they  descried  three  boats  in  the  offing,  but  no  signals 
they  were  able  to  make  could  attract  notice.  Then,  when  reduced  to  a  mis 
erable  band  of  emaciated,  hopeless  wretches,  they  undertook  and  with  great 
labor  constructed  a  raft,  upon  which  two  men  ventured  to  attempt  to  reach 
the  shore.  Two  days  afterward  it  was  found  on  the  beach,  with  one  of  its 
crew  lying  dead  at  some  distance.  After  this  they  were  obliged  to  resort  to 
cannibalism  in  order  to  sustain  life,  subsisting  on  the  body  of  the  carpenter, 
sparingly  doled  out  to  them  by  the  captain's  hand.  To  make  an  end  of  this 
chapter  of  horrors,  the  survivors  were  rescued  after  having  been  twenty-four 
days  on  the  island.  The  raft  was,  after  all,  for  them  a  messenger  of  preser 
vation,  for  it  induced  a  search  for  the  builders. 

No  one  can  read  this  narrative  without  feeling  his  sympathy  strongly  ex 
cited  for  the  brave  John  Deane,  master  of  the  wrecked  vessel.  He  seemed 
possessed  of  more  than  human  fortitude,  and  has  told  with  a  sailor's  simple 
directness  of  his  heroic  struggle  for  life.  His  account  was  first  published  in 
1711,  appended  to  a  sermon  by  Cotton  Mather.  Deane  afterward  command 
ed  a  ship  of  war  in  the  service  of  the  Czar,  Peter  the  Great.1 

Few  who  have  seen  the  light-house  tower  on  this  lonely  rock,  distant  not 
more  than  a  dozen  miles  from  the  coast,  receiving  daily  and  nightly  obeisance 
of  hundreds  of  passing  sails,  can  realize  that  the  story  of  the  Nottingham 
could  be  true.  It  is  a  terrible  injunction  to  keep  the  lamps  trimmed  and 
brightly  burning.2 

Proceeding  onward  in  this  direction,  I  came  to  the  fish-houses  that  remain 
on  the  isle.  Tubs  of  trawls,  a  barrel  or  two  offish-oil,  a  pile  of  split  fish,  and 
the  half  of  a  hogshead,  in  which  a  "  kentle"  or  so  of  "  merchantable  fish  "  had 
just  been  salted  down,  were  here  and  there;  a  hand-barrow  on  which  to  carry 
the  fish  from  the  boat,  a  lobster-pot,  and  a  pair  of  rusty  scales,  ought  to  be 
added  to  the  inventory.  Sou'-westers  and  suits  of  oil- skin  clothing  hung 
against  the  walls;  and  in  the  loft  overhead  were  a  spare  block  or  two  and  a 
parcel  of  oars,  evidently  picked  up  adrift,  there  being  no  two  of  the  same 
length.  In  some  of  the  houses  were  whale-boats,  that  had  been  hauled  up  to 
be  calked  and  painted,  that  the  men  were  preparing  to  launch.  They  were 
all  schooner-rigged,  and  some  were  decked  over  so  as  to  furnish  a  little  cuddy 
for  bacl  weather.  No  more  sea-worthy  craft  can  be  found,  and  under  guid 
ance  of  a  practiced  hand  one  will  sail,  as  sea-folk  say,  "like  a  witch."  They 

1  John  Ward  Dean,  of  Boston,  the  accomplished  antiquary,  has  elicited  this  and  other  facts  rel 
ative  to  his  namesake. 

2  On  Boone  Island  it  is  said  there  is  no  soil  except  what  has  been  carried  there. 


174  THE  NEW  ENGLAND  COAST. 

usually  contained  a  coil  of  half-inch  line  for  the  road,  a  "killick,"  and  a  brace 
of  powder-kegs  for  the  trawls. 

The  process  of  curing,  or,  as  it  is  called  by  the  islanders, "  saving,"  fish  is 
familiar  to  all  who  live  near  the  sea-shore,  and  has  not  changed  in  two  hun 
dred  years.  It  is  described  as  practiced  here  in  1800,  by  Dr.  Morse  : 

"The  fish,  in  the  first  place,  are  thrown  from  the  boat  in  piles  on  the 
shore.  The  cutter  then  takes  them  and  cuts  their  throat,  and  rips  open  their 
bellies.  In  this  state  he  hands  them  to  the  header,  who  takes  out  the  entrails 
(detaching  the  livers,  which  are  preserved  for  the  sake  of  the  oil  they  con 
tain),  and  breaks  off  their  heads.  The  splitter  then  takes  out  the  backbone, 
and  splits  them  completely  open,  and  hands  them  to  the  salter,  who  salts 
and  piles  them  in  bulk,  where  they  lie  from  ten  to  twenty  hours,  as  is  most 
convenient.  The  shoremen  and  the  women  then  wash  and  spread  them  on 
the  flakes.  Here  they  remain  three  or  four  weeks,  according  to  the  weather, 
during  which  time  they  are  often  turned,  piled  in  fagots,  and  then  spread 
again,  until  they  are  completely  cured  for  market." 

The  "  dun,"  or  winter  fish,  formerly  cured  here,  were  larger  and  thicker 
than  the  summer  fish.  Great  pains  were  taken  in  drying  them,  the  fish- 
women  often  covering  the  "fagots"  with  bed- quilts  to  keep  them  clean. 
Being  cured  in  cold  weather,  they  required  but  little  salt,  and  were  almost 
transparent  when  held  up  to  the  light.  These  fish  sometimes  weighed  a  hun 
dred  pounds  or  more.  The  dun  fish  were  of  great  esteem  in  Spain  and  in  the 
Mediterranean  ports,  bringing  the  highest  price  during  Lent.  They  found 
their  way  to  Madrid,  where  many  a  platter,  smoking  hot,  has  doubtless 
graced  the  table  of  the  Escurial.  In  1745  a  quintal  would  sell  for  a  guinea. 

In  1775  the  revolting  colonies,  unable  to  protect  the  islands,  ordered  their 
abandonment.  A  few  of  the  inhabitants  remained,  but  the  larger  number 
removed  to  the  near  main-land,  and  were  scattered  among  the  neighboring 
towns.  The  Shoals  became  through  the  war  a  rendezvous  for  British  ships. 
The  last  official  act  of  the  last  royal  governor  of  New  Hampshire  was  per 
formed  here  in  1775,  when  Sir  John  Wentworth  prorogued  the  Assembly  of 
his  majesty's  lost  province. 


CLIFFS,  WHITE  ISLAND. 


CHAPTER  XII. 

THE  ISLES  OF  SHOALS — continued. 

" — There  be  land-rats  and  water-rats,  water  thieves  and  land  thieves;   I  mean  pirates. "- 
Merchant  of  Venice. 

MY  next  excursion  was  to  Smutty  Nose,  or  Haley's.  Seen  from  Star  Isl 
and  it  shows  two  eminences,  with  a  little  hamlet  of  four  houses,  all 
having  their  gable-ends  toward  the  harbor,  on  the  nearest  rising  ground. 
Round  the  south-west  point  of  Smutty  Nose  is  the  little  haven  already  al 
luded  to  in  the  previous  chapter,  made  by  building  a  causeway  of  stone  over 
to  Malaga,  where  formerly  the  sea  ran  through.  This  Mr.  Samuel  Haley  did 
at  his  own  cost,  expending  part  of  a  handsome  fortune  on  the  work.  Into 
this  little  haven,  we  are  told,  many  distressed  vessels  have  put  in  and  found 


176  THE  NEW  ENGLAND  COAST. 

safe  anchorage.  The  chronicles,  speaking  by  the  pen  of  a  fair  islander,  say 
old  Mr.  Haley,  in  building  a  wall,  turned  over  a  large  flat  stone,  beneath 
which  lay  four  bars  of  solid  silver ;  with  which,  adds  tradition,  he  began  his 
sea  mole.  I  should  have  thought,  had  this  precious  discovery  gained  cur 
rency,  no  stone  would  have  been  left  unturned  by  the  islanders,  and  that 
Haley's  wall  might  have  risen  with  magical  celerity. 

It  is  certain  these  islands  were  in  former  times  the  resort  of  freebooters, 
with  such  names  as  Dixy  Bull,  Low,  and  Argall  (a  licensed  and  titled  bucca 
neer),  who  left  the  traces  of  their  own  lawlessness  in  the  manner  of  life  of  the 
islanders.  It  was  a  convenient  place  in  which  to  refit  or  obtain  fresh  pro 
visions  without  the  asking  of  troublesome  questions.1  The  pirates  could  ex 
pect  little  booty  from  the  fishermen,  but  they  often  picked  them  up  at  sea  to 
replenish  their  crews. 

In  the  year  1689  two  noted  buccaneers,  Thomas  Hawkins  and  Thomas 
Pound,  cruised  on  the  coast  of  New  England,  committing  many  depredations. 
The  Bay  colony  determined  on  their  capture,  and  dispatched  an  armed  sloop 
called  the  Mary,  Samuel  Pease  commander,  which  put  to  sea  in  October  of 
that  year.  Hearing  the  pirates  had  been  cruising  at  the  mouth  of  Buzzard's 
Bay,  Captain  Pease  made  all  sail  in  that  direction.  The  Mary  overhauled 
the  outlaw  off"  Wood's  Hole.  Pease  ran  down  to  her,  hailed,  and  ordered  her 
to  heave  to.  The  freebooter  ran  up  a  blood-red  flag  in  defiance,  when  the 
Mary  fired  a  shot  athwart  her  forefoot,  and  again  hailed,  with  a  demand  to 
strike  her  colors.  Pound,  who  stood  upon  his  quarter-deck,  answered  the  hail 
with,  "Come  on,  you  dogs,  and  I  will  strike  you."  Waving  his  sword,  his 
men  poured  a  volley  into  the  Mary,  and  the  action  for  some  time  raged 
fiercely,  no  quarter  being  expected.  Captain  Pease  at  length  carried  his  ad 
versary  by  boarding,  receiving  wounds  in  the  hand-to-hand  conflict  of  which 
he  died. 

In  1723  the  sloop  Dolphin,  of  Cape  Ann,  was  taken  on  the  Banks  by  Phil 
lips,  a  noted  pirate.  The  able-bodied  of  the  Dolphin  were  forced  to  join  the 
pirate  crew.  Among  the  luckless  fishermen  was  John  Fillmore,  of  Ipswich. 
Phillips,  to  quiet  their  scruples,  promised  on  his  honor  to  set  them  at  liberty 
at  the  end  of  three  months.  Finding  no  other  hope  of  escape,  for  of  course 
the  liar  and  pirate  never  meant  to  keep  his  word,  Fillmore,  with  the  help 
of  Edward  Cheesman  and  an  Indian,  seizing  his  opportunity,  killed  three 
of  the  chief  pirates,  including  Phillips,  on  the  spot.  The  rest  of  the  crew, 

1  1670.  The  General  Court  being  informed  that  there  is  a  ship  riding  in  the  road  at  the  Isle 
of  Shoales  suspected  to  be  a  pirat,  and  hath  pirattically  seized  the  sayd  ship  and  goods  from  some 
of  the  French  nation  in  amity  with  the  English,  and  doeth  not  come  under  comand,  this  Court 
doeth  declare  and  order  that  neither  the  sayd  ship  or  goods  or  any  of  the  company  shall  come  into 
our  jurisdiction,  or  be  brought  into  any  of  our  ports,  upon  penalty  of  being  seized  upon  and  se 
cured  to  answer  what  shall  be  objected  against  them. — "Massachusetts  Colonial  Records, "vol.  iv., 
part  ii.,  p.  449. 


THE  ISLES  OF  SHOALS.  177 

made  up  in  part  of  pressed  men,  submitted,  and  the  captured  vessel  was 
brought  into  Boston  by  the  conquerors  on  the  3d  of  May,  1724.  John  Fill- 
more,  the  quasi  pirate,  was  the  great-grandfather  of  Millard  Fillmore,  thir 
teenth  President  of  the  United  States. 

It  is  affirmed  on  the  authority  of  Charles  Chauncy  that  Low  once  cap 
tured  some  fishermen  from  the  "Shoals."  Disappointed,  perhaps,  in  his  ex 
pectation  of  booty,  he  first  caused  the  captives  to  be  barbarously  flogged,  and 
afterward  required  each  of  them  three  times  to  curse  Parson  Mather  or  be 
hanged.  The  prisoners  did  not  reject  the  alternative. 

No  doubt  these  pirates  had  heard  of  the  sermons  Cotton  Mather  was  in 
the  habit  of  preaching  before  the  execution  of  many  of  their  confederates. 
In  his  time  it  was  the  custom  to  march  condemned  prisoners  under  a  strong 
guard  to  some  church  on  the  Sabbath  preceding  the  day  on  which  they  were 
to  suffer.  There,  marshaled  in  the  broad  aisle,  they  listened  to  a  discourse  on 
the  enormity  of  their  crimes  and  the  torments  that  awaited  them  in  the  other 
world,  this  being  the  manner  in  which  the  old  divines  administered  the  con 
solations  of  religion  to  such  desperate  malefactors. 

New  England  could  contribute  a  thick  volume  to  the  annals  of  piracy  in 
the  New  World  from  the  records  of  a  hundred  years  subsequent  to  her  set 
tlement.  The  name  of  Kidd  was  long  a  bugbear  with  which  to  terrify  way 
ward  children  into  obedience,  and  the  search  for  his  treasure  continues,  as  we 
have  seen,  to  this  day.  Bradish,  Bellamy,  and  Quelch  sailed  these  seas  like 
true  followers  of  those  dreaded  rovers  who  swept  the  English  coasts,  and  sent 
their  defiance  to  the  king  himself: 

"Go  tell  the  King  of  England,  go  tell  him  thus  from  me, 
Though  he  reigns  king  o'er  all  the  land,  I  will  reign  king  at  sea." 

They  have  still  the  ghost  of  a  pirate  on  Appledore,  one  of  Kidd's  men. 
There  has  consequently  been  much  seeking  after  treasure.  The  face  of  the 
spectre  is  "  pale,  and  very  dreadful"  to  behold;  and  its  neck,  it  is  averred, 
shows  the  livid  mark  of  the  hangman's  noose.  It  answers  to  the  name  of 
"Old  Bab."  Once  no  islander  could  be  found  hardy  enough  to  venture  on 
Appledore  after  night-fall.  I  shrewdly  suspect  "Old  Bab"  to  be  in  the  pay 
of  the  Laightons. 

In  1700,  Rear-admiral  Benbow  was  lying  at  Piscataqua,  with  nine  of  Kidd's 
pirates  on  board  for  transportation  to  England.  Robert  Bradenham,  Kidd's 
surgeon,  says  the  Earl  of  Bellomont,  was  the  "  obstinatest  and  most  harden 
ed  of 'em  all."  In  the  year  1726  the  pirates  William  Fly,  Samuel  Cole,  and 
Henry  Greenville  wrere  taken  and  put  to  death  at  Boston,  after  having  been 
well  preached  to  in  Old  Brattle  Street  by  Dr.  Colman.  Fly,  the  captain,  like 
a  truculent  knave,  refused  to  come  into  church,  and  on  the  way  to  execu 
tion  bore  himself  with  great  bravado.  He  jumped  briskly  into  the  cart  with 
a  nosegay  in  his-  hand,  smiling  and  bowing  to  the  spectators,  as  he  passed 

12 


178 


THE  NEW  ENGLAND   COAST. 


along,  with  real  or  affected  unconcern.     At  the  gallows  he  showed  the  same 
obstinacy  until  his  face  was  covered.1 

The  various  legends  relative  to  the  corsairs,  and  the  secreting  of  their  ill- 
gotten  gains  among  these  rocks,  would  of  themselves  occupy  a  lengthy  chap 
ter;  and  the  recital  of  the  fearful  sights  and  sounds  which  have  confronted 
such  as  were  hardy  enough  to  seek  for  treasure  would  satisfy  the  most  in 
veterate  marvel-monger  in  the  land. 

Among  others  to  whom  it  is  said  these  islands  were  known  was  the  cele 
brated  Captain  Teach,  or  Blackbeard, 
as  he  was  often  called.  He  is  sup 
posed  to  have  buried  immense  treas 
ure  here,  some  of  which,  like  Haley's 
ingots,  has  been  dug  up  and  appro 
priated  by  the  islanders.  On  one  of 
his  cruises,  while  lying  off  the  Scottish 
coast  waiting  for  a  rich  trader,  he  was 
boarded  by  a  stranger,  who  came  off 
in  a  small  boat  from  the  shore.  The 
new-comer  demanded  to  be  led  before 
the  pirate  chief,  in  whose  cabin  he  re 
mained  some  time  shut  up.  At  length 
Teach  appeared  on  deck  with  the  stran 
ger,  whom  he  introduced  to  the  crew 
as  a  comrade.  The  vessel  they  were 
expecting  soon  came  in  sight,  and  after 
a  bloody  conflict  became  the  prize  of  Blackbeard.  It  was  determined  by  the 
corsair  to  man  and  arm  the  captured  vessel.  The  unknown  had  fought  with 
undaunted  bravery  and  address  during  the  battle.  He  was  given  the  com 
mand  of  the  prize. 

The  stranger  Scot  was  not  long  in  gaining  the  bad  eminence  of  being  as 
good  a  pirate  as  his  renowned  commander.  His  crew  thought  him  invinci 
ble,  and  followed  where  he  led.  At  last,  after  his  appetite  for  wealth  had 
been  satisfied  by  the  rich  booty  of  the  Southern  seas,  he  arrived  on  the  coast 
of  his  native  land.  His  boat  was  manned,  and  landed  him  on  the  beach  near 
an  humble  dwelling,  whence  he  soon  returned,  bearing  in  his  arms  the  lifeless 
form  of  a  woman. 

The  pirate  ship  immediately  set  sail  for  America,  and  in  due  time  dropped 
her  anchor  in  the  road  of  the  Isles  of  Shoals.  Here  the  crew  passed  their 

1  After  execution  the  bodies  of  the  pirates  were  taken  to  the  little  island  in  Boston  harbor 
known  as  Nix's  Mate,  on  which  there  is  a  monument.  Fly  was  hung  in  chains,  and  the  other  two 
buried  on  the  beach.  The  total  disappearance  of  this  island  before  the  encroachments  of  the  sea 
is  the  foundation  of  a  legend.  Bird  Island,  in  the  same  harbor,  on  which  pirates  have  been  exe 
cuted,  has  also  disappeared.  It  formerly  contained  a  considerable  area. 


BLACKBEARD,  THE   PIRATE. 


THE   ISLES  OF  SHOALS.  179 

time  in  secreting  their  riches  and  in  carousal.  The  commander's  portion  was 
buried  on  an  island  apart  from  the  rest.  He  roamed  over  the  isles  with  his 
beautiful  companion,  forgetful,  it  would  seem,  of  his  fearful  trade,  until  one 
morning  a  sail  was  seen  standing  in  for  the  islands.  All  was  now  activity 
on  board  the  pirate ;  but  before  getting  under  way  the  outlaw  carried  the 
maiden  to  the  island  where  he  had  buried  his  treasure,  and  made  her  take  a 
fearful  oath  to  guard  the  spot  from  mortals  until  his  return,  were  it  not  'til 
doomsday.  He  then  put  to  sea. 

The  strange  sail  proved  to  be  a  warlike  vessel  in  search  of  the  freebooter. 
A  long  and  desperate  battle  ensued,  in  which  the  cruiser  at  last  silenced  her 
adversary's  guns.  The  vessels  were  grappled  for  a  last  struggle,  when  a  ter 
rific  explosion  strewed  the  sea  with  the  fragments  of  both.  Stung  to  mad 
ness  by  defeat,  knowing  that  if  taken  alive  the  gibbet  awaited  him,  the  rover 
had  fired  the  magazine,  involving  friend  and  foe  in  a  common  fate. 

A  few  mangled  wretches  succeeded  in  reaching  the  islands,  only  to  per 
ish  miserably,  one  by  one,  from  cold  and  hunger.  The  pirate's  mistress  re 
mained  true  to  her  oath  to  the  last,  or  until  she  also  succumbed  to  want  and 
exposure.  By  report,  she  has  been  seen  more  than  once  on  White  Island — a 
tall,  shapely  figure,  wrapped  in  a  long  sea-cloak,  her  head  and  neck  uncovered, 
except  by  a  profusion  of  golden  hair.  Her  face  is  described  as  exquisitely 
rounded,  but  pale  and  still  as  marble.  She  takes  her  stand  on  the  verge  of  a 
low,  projecting  point,  gazing  fixedly  out  upon  the  ocean  in  an  attitude  of  in 
tense  expectation.  A  former  race  of  fishermen  avouched  that  her  ghost  was 
doomed  to  haunt  those  rocks  until  the  last  trump  shall  sound,  and  that  the 
ancient  graves  to  be  found  on  the  islands  were  tenanted  by  Blackbeard's  men.1 

These  islands  were  also  the  favorite  haunt  of  smugglers.2  Many  a  runlet 
of  Canary  has  been  "passed"  here  that  never  paid  duty  to  king  or  Congress. 
It  must  have  been  a  very  paradise  of  free-traders,  who,  doubtless,  had  the  sym 
pathies  of  the  inhabitants  in  their  illicit  traffic.  "What  a  smuggler's  isle!" 
was  my  mental  ejaculation  when  I  first  set  foot  on  Star  Island;  what  a  re 
treat  for  some  Dirck  Hatteraick  or  outlawed  Jean  Lafitte ! 

I  rowed  over  to  Smutty  Nose  in  a  wherry.     The  name  has  a  rough  sig- 


1  A  somewhat  more  authentic  naval  conflict  occurred  during  the  war  of  1812  with  Great 
Britain,  when  the  American  privateer,  Governor  Plummer.  was  captured  on  Jeffrey's  Ledge  by  a 

1  British  cruiser,  the  Sir  John  Sherbroke.  The  American  had  previously  made  many  captures. 
Off  Newfoundland  she  sustained  a  hard  fight  with  a  ressel  of  twelve  guns,  sent  out  to  take  her. 
IShe  also  beat  off  six  barges  sent  on  the  same  errand. 

2  1686.     Ordered  that  no  shipps  do  unliver  any  part  of  their  lading  at  the  Isles  of  Shoals  be 
fore  they  have  first  entered  with  the  Collector  of  H.  M.  Customs,  and  also  with  the  officer  receiv 
ing  his  majs  imposts  and  revenues  arising  upon  wine,  sperm,  &c.,  imported  either  in  Boston,  Salem, 
or  Piscataqua;  and  that  all  shipps  and  vessells  trading  to  the  eastward  of  Cape  Porpus  shall  enter 
at  some  of  the  aforesaid  Ports,  or  at  the  town  of  Falmouth  in  the  Prov.  of  Maine. — "  Massachusetts 
Council  Records,"  vol.  i.,  p.  43. 


180  THE  NEW  ENGLAND  COAST. 

nificance.  Looking  at  the  islands  at  low  tide,  they  present  well-defined  belts 
of  color.  First  is  the  dark  line  of  submerged  rock-weed,  which  led  some  acute 
fisherman  to  hit  off  with  effect  the  more  popular  name  of  Haley's  Island ; 
next  comes  a  strip  almost  as  green  as  the  grass  in  the  rocky  pastures ;  above 
these  again,  shaded  into  browns  or  dingy  yellows,  the  rocks  appear  of  a 
tawny  hue,  and  then  blanched  to  a  ghastly  whiteness,  a  little  relieved  by 
dusky  patches  of  green. 

I  remarked  that  the  schooners  of  twenty  or  thirty  tons'  burden  lying  in 
the  harbor  were  all  at  moorings,  ready  to  run  after  a  school  of  fish  or  away 
from  a  storm.  It  is  only  a  few  years  since  three  of  these  vessels  were  blown 
from  their  moorings  and  stranded  on  the  rocks  of  Smutty  Nose  and  Appledore. 

In  1635  the  ship  James,  Captain  Taylor,  of  Bristol,  England,  had  a  narrow 
escape  from  being  wrecked  here.  After  losing  three  anchors,  she  was  with 
difficulty  guided  past  the  great  rocks  into  the  open  sea.  The  curious  reader 
will  find  the  details  quaintly  set  forth  in  the  journal  of  Rev.  Richard  Mather, 
the  ancestor  of  a  celebrated  family  of  New  England  divines.1  She  had  on 
board  a  hundred  passengers  for  the  Massachusetts  Colony. 

While  lying  on  our  oars  in  this  basin,  where  so  many  antique  craft  have 
been  berthed,  it  is  perhaps  not  amiss  to  allude  to  Thomas  Morton,  of  Mount 
Wollaston,2  alias  Merry  Mount.  To  do  so  it  will  not  only  be  necessary  to 
clamber  up  the  crumbling  side  of  the  ship  in  which  he  was  being  sent  a 
prisoner  to  England,  but  to  surmount  prejudices  equally  decrepit,  that,  like 
the  spectre  of  "  Old  Bab,"  continue  to  appear  long  after  they  have  been  de 
cently  gibbeted.  The  incident  derives  a  certain  interest  from  the  fact  that 
Morton's  was  the  first  instance  of  banishment  in  the  New  England  colonies. 
The  only  consequence  of  Thomas  Morton,  of  Clifford's  Inn,  gent.,  is  due  to 
the  effort  to  cast  obloquy  upon  the  Pilgrims. 

In  the  year  1628  the  ship  Whale  was  riding  at  the  Isles  of  Shoals,  Morton 
having  been  ssized  by  order  of  Plymouth  Colony,  and  put  on  board  for  trans 
portation  to  England.  What  manner  of  ship  the  Whale  was  may  be  gather 
ed  from  Morton's  own  account  of  her.  The  master  he  calls  "Mr.  Weather 
cock,"  and  the  ship  "a  pitiful,  weather-beaten  craft,"  in  which  he  was  "in 
more  danger  than  Jonah  in  the  whale's  belly." 

The  cause  of  Morton's  banishment  is  often  asserted  to  have  been  simply 
his  licentious  conduct,  and  what  some  have  been  pleased  to  call  indulgence 
in  such  "hearty  old  English  pastimes"  as  dancing  about  a  May-pole,  sing-, 
ing  songs  of  no  doubtful  import,  holding  high  wrassail  the  while,  like  the  mad, 
roystering  rogues  his  followers  were.  The  Pilgrim  Fathers  are  indicted  by 
a  class  of  historians  desirous  of  displaying  to  the  world  the  intolerance  of  the 
"Plymouth  Separatists,"  as  distinguished  from  the  liberality  which  marked 

1  Boston,  1850:  original  in  possession  of  Dorchester  Antiquarian  Society. 

8  Mount  Wollaston,  Quincy,  Massachusetts  ;  present  residence  of  John  Quincy  Adams,  Esq. 


THE  ISLES  OF  SHOALS.  181 

the  religious  views  of  the  settlers  east  of  the  Merrimac.  Our  forefathers,  say 
they,  did  not  come  to  the  New  World  for  religious  liberty,  but  to  fish  aud 
trade. 

Morton's  offense  is  stated  by  Governor  Bradford,  in  his  letters  to  the 
Council  for  New  England  and  to  Sir  F.  Gorges,  to  have  been  the  selling  of 
arms  and  ammunition  to  the  Indians  in  such  quantities  as  to  endanger  the 
safety  of  the  infant  plantations.  He  was  arrested,  and  his  association  of  Mer 
ry  Mount  broken  up,  after  repeated  and  friendly  efforts  to  dissuade  him  from 
this  course  had  been  met  with  insolence  and  bravado.  It  stands  thus  in  Gov 
ernor  Bradford's  letter-book : 

"To  the  Honourable  his  Majesty's  Council  for  New  England,  these,  Eight 
Honourable  and  our  very  good  Lords : 

"Necessity  hath  forced  us,  his  Majesty's  subjects  of  New  England  in  gen- 
oral  (after  long  patience),  to  take  this  course  with  this  troublesome  planter, 
Mr.  Thomas  Morton,  whom  we  have  sent  unto  your  honours  that  you  may  be 
pleased  to  take  that  course  with  him  which  to  your  honourable  wisdom  shall 
seem  fit;  who  hath  been  often  admonished  not  to  trade  or  truck  with  the  In 
dians  either  pieces,  powder,  or  shot,  which  yet  he  hath  done,  and  duly  makes 
provision  to  do,  and  could  not  be  restrained,  taking  it  in  high  scorn  (as  he 
speaks)  that  any  here  should  controul  therein.  Now  the  general  weakness  of 
us  his  Majesty's  subjects,  the  strength  of  the  Indians,  and  at  this  time  their 
great  preparations  to  do  some  affront  upon  us,  and  the  evil  example  which  it 
gives  unto  others,  and  having  no  subordinate  general  government  under  your 
honours  in  this  land  to  restrain  such  misdemeanours,  causeth  us  to  be  trouble 
some  to  your  Lordships  to  send  this  party  unto  you  for  remedy  and  redress 
hereof." 

The  letter  to  Sir  F.  Gorges1  is  in  greater  detail,  but  its  length  prevents  its 
insertion  with  the  foregoing  extract.  The  Governor  of  New  Plymouth  makes 
a  similar  allegation  with  regard  to  the  fishing  ships.  It  is  noticeable  that  all 
the  plantations  took  part  in  this  affair,  Piscataqua,  the  Isles  of  Shoals,  Edward 
Hilton,  and  others  paying  their  proportion  of  the  expense  of  sending  Morton 
out  of  the  country. 

Morton's  offense,  therefore,  was  political  and  not  religious,  and  his  extradi 
tion  a  measure  of  self-preservation,  an  inexorable  law  in  1628  to  that  handful 
of  settlers.  If,  at  the  end  of  nearly  two  centuries  and  a  half,  the  Government 
those  Pilgrims  contributed  to  found  deemed  it  necessary  to  the  public  safety 
to  banish  individuals  from  its  borders,  how,  then,  may  we  challenge  this  act 
of  a  few  men  who  dwelt  in  a  wilderness,  and  worshiped  their  God  with  the 
Bible  in  one  hand  and  a  musket  in  the  other? 

J  See  "  Massachusetts  Historical  Collections,"  vol.  iii.,  p.  63. 


182 


THE  NEW  ENGLAND  COAST. 


Morton  defied  the  proclamation  of  the  king  promulgated  in  1622,  saying 
there  was  no  penalty  attached  to  it.  Its  terms  forbade  "  any  to  trade  to  the 
portion  of  America  called  New  England,  being  the  whole  breadth  of  the  land 
between  forty  and  forty-eight  degrees  of  north  latitude,  excepting  those  of 
the  Virginia  Company,  the  plantation  having  been  much  injured  by  interlo 
pers,  who  have  injured  the  woods,  damaged  the  harbors,  trafficked  with  the 
savages,  and  even  sold  them  weapons,  and  taught  them  the  use  thereof."1 

Of  the  May-pole,  which  the  Pilgrims  regarded  with  grim  discontent, 
Stubbes  gives  the  manner  in  England  of  bringing  it  home  from  the  woods. 

"But,"  he  says,  "their  cheefest  Jewell  they  bring  home  with  greate  vener 
ation,  as  thus :  they  have  twentie  or  fourtie  yoke  of  oxen,  every  oxe  hav- 
yng  a  sweete  nosegaie  of  flowers  tyed  on  the  tippe  of  his  homes,  and  these 
oxen  drawe  home  this  Maie-poole,  which  is  covered  all  over  with  flowers  and 
hearbes,  bounde  rounde  aboute  with  stringes  from  the  top  to  the  bottome, 
and  sometyrne  painted  with  variable  colours,  with  two  or  three  hundred  men, 
women,  and  children  folio  wyng  it  with  great  devotion.  And  thus  bey  ing 
reared  np  with  handkercheifes  and  flagges  streamyng  on  the  toppe,  they 
strawe  the  grounde  aboute,  binde  green  bonghes  about  it,  sett  up  Sommer 
haules,  Bowers,  and  Arbours  hard  by.  And  then  fall  they  to  banquet  and 
feast,  to  leape  and  dance  aboute  it,  as  the  Heathen  people  did  at  the  dedica 
tion  of  their  idolles,  whereof  this  is  a  perfect  patterne,  or  rather  the  thynge 
itself." 


SMUTTY   NOSE. 


Smutty  Nose,  the  most  verdant  of  the  islands,  was  one  of  the  earliest  set 
tled.  The  stranger  for  the  first  time  feels  something  like  soil  beneath  his 
feet.  There  is  a  wharf  and  a  little  landing-place,  where  a  boat  may  be 


1  British  State  Papers,  Calendars. 


THE  ISLES  OF  SHOALS.  183 

beached.  When  within  Haley's  little  cove,  I  looked  down  into  the  water, 
and  saw  the  perch  (dinners)  swimming  lazily  about.  This  was  the  only 
place  where  the  old-time  industry  of  the  isles  showed  even  a  flake,  so  to 
speak,  of  its  former  greatness.  There  were  a  few  men  engaged  in  drying 
their  fish  near  the  landing.  Clear  weather  with  westerly  winds  is  best  for 
this  purpose;  dull  or  foggy  weather  spoils  the  fish. 


HALEY   DOCK   AND   HOMESTEAD. 

(In  the  third  House  from  the  left  the  Wagiier  Murder  was  committed.) 

At  a  little  distance,  shorn  of  some  of  its  former  adornments,  is  the  home 
stead  of  Samuel  Haley,  who  with  his  two  sons  and  their  families  occupied  the 
island  many  years  ago.  Xot  far  off  is  the  little  family  grave-yard  of  the 
Haleys,  with  the  palings  falling  in  decay,  and  the  mounds  overgrown  with  a 
tan  sic  of  rank  grass.  At  one  time,  by  his  energy,  Mr.  Haley  had  made  of 
his  island  a  self-sustaining  possession.  Before  the  Revolution  he  had  built  a 
windmill,  salt-works,  and  rope-walk;  a  bakehouse,  brewery,  distillery,  black 
smith's  and  cooper's  shops  succeeded  in  the  first  year  of  peace— all  going  to 
decay  within  his  lifetime.  By  all  report  of  him,  he  was  a  good  and  humane 
man,  and  I  hereby  set  up  his  prostrate  grave-stone  on  my  page: 

"IN  MEMORY   OF  MR.  SAMUEL  HALEY 
Who  died  in  the  year  1811 

Aged  84 

He  was  a  man  of  great  Ingenuity 

Industry  Honor  and  Honesty,  true  to  his 

Country  &  A  man  who  did  A  great 

Public  good  in  Building  A 

Dock  &  Receiving  into  his 

Enclosure  many  a  poor 

Distressed  Seaman  &  Fisherman 

In  distress  of  Weather." 


184  THE  NEW  ENGLAND  COAST. 

A  few  steps  farther  on  are  the  graves  of  fourteen  shipwrecked  mariners, 
marked  by  rude  boulders.  It  is  entered  in  the  Gosport  records:  "  1813,  Jan. 
,  ship  Sagunto  stranded  on  Smutty  Nose  Isle;  Jan.  15tk, one  man  found; 

J,  six  men  found  ;  21st,  seven  men  found."  The  record  sums  up  the  num 
ber  as  twelve'bodies  found,  whereas  the  total  appears  to  be  fourteen. 

Although  the  ship  Sagunto  was  not  stranded  on  Smutty  Nose  Isle,  the 
wreck  of  a  ship,  either  Spanish  or  Portuguese,  with  all  on  board,  remains  a 
terrible  fact  but  too  well  attested  by  these  graves.1  The  horror  of  the  event 
is  deepened  and  strengthened  by  the  simple  word  "Unknown."  When  this 
ship  crashed  and  filled  and  went  down,  the  Sagunto  was  lying,  after  a  terrible 
buffeting,  within  a  safe  harbor. 

It  was  in  a  blinding  snow-storm,  and  a  gale  that  strewed  the  shore  from 
the  Penobscot  to  Hatteras  with  wrecks,  that  a  ship  built  of  cedar  and  ma 
hogany  was  thrown  on  these  rocks.  Not  a  living  soul  was  left  to  tell  the 
tale  of  that  bitter  January  night.  The  ill-fated  vessel  was  richly  laden,  no 
doubt,  for  boxes  of  raisins  and  almonds  from  Malaga  drifted  on  shore  the  next 
morning.  On  a  piece  of  the  wreck  that  came  in  a  silver  watch  of  English 
make  was  found,  with  the  letters  "P.  S."  graven  on  the  seals;  and  among  the 
debris  was  a  Spanish  and  part  of  an  American  ensign,  for  it  was  war-time  then 
between  England  and  the  American  States.  The  watch  had  stopped  at  ex 
actly  four  o'clock,  or  when  time  ceased  for  those  hapless  Spaniards.  There 
were  also  found  some  twenty  letters,  addressed  south  of  New  York.  Conjec 
ture  said  it  was  a  Spanish  ship  from  Cadiz,  bound  for  Philadelphia. 

This  is  the  story  of  this  little  clump  of  graves,  and  of  the  wreck,  to  this 
day  unknown.  It  has  been  told  many  times  in  prose  and  poetry,  but  not  oft 
en  truly.  Samuel  Haley  had  been  quietly  lying  in  his  grave  two  years.  The 
reader  may  or  may  not  believe,  he  found  the  frozen  bodies  of  some  of  the  crew 
next  morning  reclining  on  his  wall.  Here  is  a  wild  flower  of  island  growth, 
of  a  handful  cast  upon  these  fading  mounds : 

"O  sailors,  did  sweet  eyes  look  after  you 

The  day  you  sailed  away  from  sunny  Spain? 
Bright  eyes  that  followed  fading  ship  and  crew, 
Melting  in  tender  rain?" 

I  wondered  that  these  fourteen  the  old  sea  had  strangled  and  flung  up 
here  could  rest  so  peacefully  in  ground  unblessed  by  Holy  Church.  Per 
chance  the  spot  has  witnessed  midnight  mass,  with  incense  and  with  missal : 
no  doubt  beads  have  been  told,  and  a  pater  and  ave  said  by  pious  pilgrims. 


1  Spanish  ship  Sagunto,  Carrera,  seventy-three  days  from  Cadiz  for  New  York,  arrived  at  New 
port  on  Monday,  January  llth,  out  of  provisions  and  water,  and  the  crew  frost-bitten.  Cargo, 
wine,  raisins,  and  salt.  Saw  no  English  cruisers,  and  spoke  only  one  vessel,  a  Baltimore  priva 
teer. —  Columbian  Centinel,  January  IGth,  1813. 


THE  ISLES  OF  SHOALS.  185 

It  is  not  pleasant  to  think  that  the  island  has  become  more  widely  known 
through  the  medium  of  an  atrocious  murder  committed  here  in  March,  1873. 
Formerly  the  islanders  dated  from  some  well-remembered  wreck;  now  it  is 
before  or  since  the  murder  on  Smutty  Nose  they  reckon. 

On  the  morning  of  March  6th  the  Norwegian  who  lives  opposite  Star  Isl 
and,  on  Appledore,  heard  a  cry  for  help.  Going  to  the  shore,  he  saw  a  wom 
an  standing  on  the  rocks  of  Malaga  in  her  night-dress.  He  crossed  over  and 
brought  the  poor  creature  to  his  cottage,  when  it  appeared  that  her  feet  were 
frozen.  She  was  half  dead  with  fright  and  exposure,  but  told  her  tale  as  soon 
as  she  was  able. 

John  Hontvet,  a  fisherman,  occupied  one  of  the  three  houses  on  Smutty 
Nose ;  the  third  counting  from  the  little  cove,  as  you  look  at  it  from  Star  Isl 
and.  On  the  nio-ht  of  the  5th  of  March  he  was  at  Portsmouth,  leaving  three 

C3  3 

women — Mary,  his  wife ;  Annethe  and  Karen  Christensen — at  home.  They 
went  to  bed  as  usual,  Annethe  with  Mrs.  Hontvet  in  the  bedroom;  Karen  on 
a  couch  in  the  kitchen.  It  was  a  fine  moonlight  night,  though  cold,  and 
there  was  snow  on  the  ground. 

Some  time  during  the  night  a  man  entered  the  house,  it  is  supposed  for 
the  purpose  of  robbery.  He  fastened  the  door  between  the  kitchen,  which  he 
first  entered,  and  the  bedroom,  thus  isolating  the  sleeping  women.  Karen, 
having  awoke,  cried  out,  when  she  was  attacked  by  the  intruder  with  a  chair. 
The  noise  having  aroused  the  two  women  in  the  bedroom,  Mary  Hontvet 
jumped  out  of  bed,  forced  open  the  door  leading  into  the  kitchen,  and  suc 
ceeded  in  getting  hold  of  the  wounded  girl,  Karen,  whom  she  drew  within 
her  own  chamber.  All  this  took  place  in  the  dark.  Mary  then  bade  Annethe, 
her  brother's  wife,  to  jump  out  of  the  window,  and  she  did  so,  but  was  too 
much  terrified  to  go  beyond  the  corner  of  the  house.  Mary,  meanwhile,  was 
holding  the  door  of  the  kitchen  against  the  attempts  of  their  assailant  to  force 
it  open.  Foiled  here,  the  villain  left  the  house,  and  meeting  the  young  wife, 
Annethe,  was  seen  by  Mary,  in  the  clear  moonlight,  to  deal  her  three  terrible 
blows  with  an  axe.  But  before  she  was  struck  down  the  girl  had  recognized 
her  murderer,  and  shrieked  out,  "  Louis,  Louis  !" 

After  this  accursed  deed  the  man  went  back  to  the  house,  and  Mary  also 
made  her  escape  by  the  window.  Karen  wras  too  badly  hurt  to  follow.  The 
clear-grit  Norwegian  woman  ran  first  to  the  dock,  but  finding  no  boat  there, 
hid  herself  among  the  rocks.  She  durst  not  shout,  for  fear  the  sound  of  her 
voice  would  bring  the  murderer  to  the  spot.  There  she  remained,  like  anoth 
er  Betty  Moody,  until  sunrise,  when  she  took  courage  and  went  across  the 
sea-wall  to  Malaga  and  was  rescued.  I  was  told  that  when  she  fled,  with 
rare  presence  of  mind,  she  took  her  little  dog  under  her  arm,  for  fear  it  might 
prove  her  destruction. 

It  resulted  that  Louis  Wagner,  a  Prussian,  was  arrested,  tried  for  the  mur 
der,  and  condemned  as  guilty.  The  fatal  recognition  by  Annethe,  the  figure 


186  THE  NEW  ENGLAND  COAST. 

seen  with  uplifted  axe  through  the  window  by  Mary,  and  the  prisoner's  ab 
sence  from  his  lodgings  on  the  night  of  the  murder,  pointed  infallibly  to  him 
as  the  chief  actor  in  this  night  of  horrors.  To  have  committed  this  crime  he 
must  have  rowed  from  Portsmouth  to  the  Islands  and  back  again  on  the  night 
in  question ;  no  great  feat  for  one  of  those  hardy  islanders,  and  Wagner  was 
noted  for  muscular  strength.  It  is  said  he  was  of  a  churlish  disposition,  and 
would  seldom  speak  unless  addressed,  when  he  would  answer  shortly.  He 
was  not  considered  a  bad  fellow,  but  a  poor  companion. 

I  went  to  the  house.  Relic-hunters  had  left  it  in  a  sorry  plight;  taking 
away  even  the  sashes  of  the  windows,  shelves,  and  every  thing  movable.  Even 
the  paper  had  been  torn  from  the  walls,  and  carried  off  for  its  blood-stains. 
Hontvet  described,  with  the  phlegm  of  his  race,  the  appearance  of  the  house 
on  the  morning  of  the  tragedy  :  "Karen  lay  dere;  Annethe  lay  here,"  he  said. 
I  saw  they  were  preparing  to  make  it  habitable  again:  better  burn  it,  say  I. 

We  had  a  sun-dog  at  evening  and  a  rainbow  in  the  morning,  full-arched, 
and  rising  out  of  the  sea,  a  sure  forerunner,  say  veteran  observers,  of  foul 
weather.  Says  the  quatrain  of  the  forecastle  : 

Rainbow  in  the  morning,  • 
Sailors  take  warning ; 
Rainbow  at  night. 
Is  the  sailor's  delight." 


LEDGE   OF   ROCKS,  SMUTTY   NOSE. 

I  spent  a  quiet,  breezy  afternoon  in  exploring  Appledore.  The  landing 
from  the  harbor  side  has  to  be  made  in  some  cleft  of  the  rock,  and  is  not  prac 
ticable  when  there  is  a  sea  running.  Passing  by  the  cottage  at  the  shore,  I 
first  went  up  the  rocky  declivity  to  the  site  of  the  abandoned  settlement  of 
so  long  ago.  It  may  still  be  recognized  by  the  cellars,  rough  stone  walls,  and 
fragments  of  bricks  lying  scattered  about.  Thistles,  raspberry-bushes,  and 
dwarf  cherry-trees  in  fragrant  bloom,  were  growing  in  the  depressions  which 


THE  ISLES  OF   SHOALS. 


187 


marked  these  broken  hearth-stones  of  a  forgotten  people.  The  poisonous 
ivy,  sometimes  called  mercury,  so  often  found  clinging  to  old  walls,  was 
here.  Some  country-folk  pretend  its  potency  is  such  that  they  who  look 
on  it  are  inoculated  with  the  poison;  a  scratch,  as  I  know  to  my  cost,  will 
suffice. 

Here  was  a  strip  of  green  grass  running  along  the  harbor  side,  and,  for  the 
first  time,  the  semblance  of  a  road ;  I  followed  it  until  it  lost  itself  among 
the  rocks.  A  horse  and  a  yoke  of  oxen  were  browsing  by  the  way,  and  on 
a  distant  shelf  of 
rock  I  saw  a  cow, 
much  exaggera 
ted  in  size,  con 
tentedly  rumina 
tive.  Clumps  of 
huckleberry  and 
fragrant  bayber- 
ry  were  frequent, 
with  blackberry 
and  other  vines 
clustering  above 
the  surface  rocks. 

1  arn  inclined 
to  doubt  whether, 
after  all,  the  hab 
itation  of  Apple- 
dore1  was  aban 
doned  on  account 
of  the  Indians,  for 
Star  Island,  as  has 
been  remarked, 
could  give  no  bet 
ter  security.  Prob 
ably  the  landing 
had  much  to  do 
with  it.  With 
out  some  moving 

,        ....  SOUTH-EAST   END   OF   APPLEDORE,  LOOKING   SOUTH. 

cause  the  inhabit 
ants  would  hardly  have  left  Appledore  and  its  verdure  for  the  bald  crags  of 


1  Appledore,  a  small  sea-port  of  England.  County  of  Devon,  parish  of  Northampton,  on  the 
Torridge,  at  its  mouth  in  Barnstable  Bay,  two  and  a  quarter  miles  north  of  Bideford.  It  is  resort 
ed  to  in  summer  as  a  bathing-place,  and  has  a  harbor  subordinate  to  the  port  of  Barnstable. — • 
"•  Gazetteer." 


188 


THE  NEW  ENGLAND  COAST. 


Star  Island.  The  choice  of  Appledore  by  the  first  settlers  was  probably  due 
to  its  spring  of  pure  water,  the  only  one  on  the  islands. 

The  year  1628  is  the  first  in  which  we  can  locate  actual  settlers  at  the 
Shoals.  Mr.  Jeffrey  and  Mr.  Burslem,  then  assessed  two  pounds  for  the  ex 
penses  of  Morton's  affair,  are  supposed  to  have  been  living  there.  By  1640 
the  Rev.  Mr.  Hull,  of  Agamenticus,  paid  parochial  visits  to  the  Isles,  and 
some  time  before  1661,  says  Dr.  Morse,  they  had  a  meeting-house  on  Hog 
Island,  though  the  service  of  the  Church  of  England  was  the  first  perform 
ed  there.  The  three  brothers  Cutt,  of  Wales,  settled  there  about  1645,  re 
moving  soon  to  the  main-land,  where  they  became  distinguished.  Antipas 
Maverick  is  mentioned  as  resident  in  1647.  Another  settler  whom  the 
chronicles  do  not  omit  was  William  Pepperell,  of  Cornwall,  England,  father 
of  the  man  of  Louisburg,  who  was  here  about  1676.  The  removal  of  the 
brothers  Cutt  within  two  years,  and  of  Pepperell  and  Gibbons  after  a  brief 
residence,  does  not  confirm  the  view  that  the  islands  at  that  early  day  pos 
sessed  attractions  to  men  of  the  better  class  sometimes  claimed  for  them. 
Pepperell  and  Gibbons  left  the  choice  of  a  future  residence  to  chance,  with 
an  indifference  worthy  a  Bedouin  of  the  Great  Desert.  Holding  their  staves 
between  thumb  and  finger  until  perpendicularly  poised,  they  let  them  fall, 
departing,  the  tradition  avers,  in  the  direction  in  which  each  pointed — Pep 
perell  to  Kittery,  Gibbons  to  Muscongus. 

The  first  woman  mentioned  who  came  to  reside  at  Hog  Island  was  Mrs. 
John  Reynolds,  and  she  came  in  defiance  of  an  act  of  court  prohibiting  wom 
en  from  living  on  the  islands.  One  of  the  Cutts,  Richard  by  name,  petition 
ed  for  her  removal,  together  with  the  hogs  and  swine  running  at  large  on  the 
island  belonging  to  John  Reynolds.  The  court,  however,  permitted  her  to 
remain  during  good  behavior.  This  occurred  in  1647.  It  gives  a  glimpse 


DUCK   ISLAND,  FROM   APPLEDOKE. 


THE  ISLES  OF  SHOALS..  189 

of  what  society  must  hitherto  have  been  on  the  islands  to  call  for  such  enact 
ments.  No  wonder  men  of  substance  left  the  worse  than  barren  rocks,  and 
that  right  speedily. 

I  walked  around  the  shores  of  Appledore,  stopping  to  explore  the  chasms 
in  my  way.  One  of  them  I  could  liken  to  nothing  but  a  coffin,  it  seemed  so 
exactly  fashioned  to  receive  the  hull  of  some  unlucky  ship.  On  some  of  the 
rocks  I  remarked  impressions,  as  if  made  with  the  heel  of  a  human  foot.  In 
the  offing  Duck  Island  showed  its  jagged  teeth,  around  which  the  tide  swell 
ed  and  broke  until  it  seemed  frothing  at  the  mouth. 

Another  Smith's  monument  is  on  the  highest  part  of  the  island,  all  the 
others  being  within  view  from  it.  It  is  a  rude  cairn  of  rough  stone,  thrown 
together  with  little  effort  at  regularity.  The  surface  stones  are  overgrown 
with  lichens,  which  add  to  its  appearance  of  antiquity.  It  is  known  to  have 
stood  here  rather  more  than  a  century,  and  is  said  to  have  been  built  by  Cap 
tain  John  Smith  himself.  Howsoever  the  tradition  may  have  originated,  it  is 
all  we  have,  and  are  so  fain  to  be  content ;  but  I  marvel  that  so  modest  a  man 
as  Captain  John  should  have  said  nothing  about  it  in  the  book  writ  with  his 
own  hand.  By  some  the  monument  has  been  believed  to  be  a  beacon  built 
to  mark  the  fishing-grounds. 

Smith  arrived  at  Monhegan  in  April,  1614,  and  was  back  again  at  Plym 
outh,  England,  on  the  5th  of  August.  He  was  one  of  those  who  came  to 
"  fish  and  trade,"  seeking  out  the  habitations  of  the  Indians  for  his  purpose. 
There  were  no  savages  at  the  Isles.1  Of  his  map  Smith  writes:  "Although 
there  be  many  things  to  be  observed  which  the  haste  of  other  affairs  did 
cause  me  to  omit,  for  being  sent  more  to  get  present  commodities  than 
knowledge  by  discoveries  for  any  future  good,  I  had  not  power  to  search  as 
I  would,"  etc.  I  should  add,  in  passing,  that  Smith,  who  admits  having  seen 
the  relation  of  Gosnold,does  not  allow  him  the  credit  of  the  name  he  gave  to 
Martha's  Vineyard,  but  speaks  of  it  as  Capawock. 

One  of  the  remarkable  features  of  Appledore  is  the  valley  issuing  from 
the  cove,  dividing  the  island  in  two.  This  ravine  is  a  real  curiosity,  the  great 
depression  occurring  where  the  hotel  buildings  are  situated  affording  a  snug 
cove  on  the  west  of  the  island.  Just  behind  the  house  enough  soil  had  ac 
cumulated  to  furnish  a  thriving  and  well-kept  vegetable  garden,  evidently  an 
object  of  solicitude  to  the  proprietors.  From  the  veranda  of  the  hotel  you 
may  see  the  ocean  on  the  east  and  the  bay  on  the  west.  In  Mr.  Hawthorne's 
account  of  his  visit  here  in  1852,  he  relates  that  in  the  same  storm  that 
overthrew  Minot's  Light,  a  great  wave  passed  entirely  through  this  valley ; 
"  and,"  he  continues,  "  Laighton  describes  it  when  it  came  in  from  the  sea 
as  toppling  over  to  the  height  of  the  cupola  of  his  hotel.  It  roared  and 
whitened  through,  from  sea  to  sea,  twenty  feet  abreast,  rolling  along  huge 

1  Levett  says,  "  Upon  these  islands  are  no  salvages  at  all." 


190 


THE   NEW  ENGLAND   COAST. 


r  jcks  in  its  passage.  It  passed  beneath 
his  veranda,  which  stands  on  posts,  and 
probably  filled  the  valley  completely. 
Would  I  had  been  here  to  see !" 

When  I  came  back  to  the  harbor 
side,  both  wind  and  tide  had  risen.  I 
was  ferried  across  by  a  lad  of  not  more 
than  ten  years.  At  times  the  swift 
current  got  the  better  and  swept  the 
boat  to  leeward,  but  he  stoutly  refused 
to  give  me  the  oars,  the  pride  of  an 
islander  being  involved  in  the  matter. 
The  little  fellow  flung  his  woolen  cap 
to  the  bottom  of  the  dory,  his  hair  fly 
ing  loosely  in  the  wind  as  he  bent  to 
his  task.  After  taking  in  more  water 
than  was  for  our  comfort,  he  wras  at 
last  obliged  to  accept  my  aid.  These 
islanders  are  amphibious,  brought  up 
with  "  one  foot  on  sea,  one  foot  on 
shore."  I  doubt  if  half  their  lives  are 
passed  on  terra  firma. 

Duck  Island  is  for  the  sportsman. 
He  will  find  there  in  proper  season  the 
canvas-back,  mallard,  teal,  white-wing 
ed  coot,  sheldrake,  etc.  Few  land,  ex 
cept  gunners  in  pursuit  of  sea-fowl.  I 
contented  myself  with  sailing  along  its 
shores,  watching  the  play  of  the  surf  and  the  gambols  of  a  colony  of  small 
sea-gulls  that  seemed  in  peaceable  possession.  Duck  Island  proper  has  a 
cluster  of  wicked-looking  ledges  encircling  it  from  south-west  to  south-east. 
The  mariner  should  give  it  a  wide  berth.  Its  ill-shapen  rocks  project  on  all 
sides,  and  a  reef  makes  out  half  a  mile  into  the  sea  from  the  north-west. 
Shag  and  Mingo  are  two  of  its  satellites.  This  island  was  resorted  to  by  the 
Indians  for  the  seals  frequenting  it. 

I  had  observed  lying  above  the  landing  on  Star  Island  a  queer-looking 
craft,  which  might  with  great  propriety  be  called  a  shell.  It  consisted  of  a 
frame  of  slats  neatly  fitted  together,  over  which  a  covering  of  tarred  canvas 
had  been  stretched.  I  at  first  thought  some  Kanaka's  canoe  had  found  its 
way  through  the  North-west  Passage,  and  drifted  in  here ;  but  Mr.  Poor  as 
sured  me  it  belonged  on  the  islands,  and  \vas  owned  and  sailed  by  Torn  Leha, 
whose  dwelling  on  Londoner's  he  pointed  out.  As  Tom  Leha  was  the  Celtic 
skipper  of  the  Creed,  I  had  some  speech  of  him.  His  boat,  he  said,  was 


LAIGHTON'S  GRAVE. 


THE  ISLES   OF  SHOALS. 


191 


such  as  is  used  in  the  Shannon,  where  it  is  called  the  "  saint's  canoe,"  be 
cause  first  used  by  one  of  the  Irish  saints.  It  was  a  good  surf-boat,  light  as 
a  cork,  and  as  buoyant. 

One  night  Leha,  with  his  wife  and  three  children,  arrived  at  the  Shoals  in 
his  canoe,  which  a  strong  man  might  easily  carry.  No  one  knew  whence 
they  came.  Their  speech  was  unintelligible.  There  they  were,  and  there 
they  seemed  inclined  to  remain.  Your  bonafide  Shoaler  likes  not  intruders. 
The  islanders  gave  Leha  and  his  a  cold  welcome,  but  this  did  not  discompose 
him.  He  was  faithful  and  industrious,  and  in  time  saved  money  enough  to 
buy  Londoner's.  He  waved  his  hand  toward  his  island  home,  as  if  to  say, 

"An  ill-favored  thing,  sir,  but  mine  own." 

As  seen  from  Star  Island,  Londoner's  shows  two  rugged  knobs  connected 
by  a  narrower  strip  of  shingle.  It  has  its  cove,  and  a  reasonably  good  laiid- 


LONDONER'S,  FROM  STAR  ISLAND 

ing.  Half-way  between  it  and  Star  are  hidden  rocks  over  which  the  sea 
breaks.  It  was  not  occupied  by  its  owner  when  I  was  there. 

It  was  a  lovely  morning  when  I  rowed  over  to  White  Island.  Once  clear 
of  the  harbor,  I  found  outside  what  sailors  call  "  an  old  sea,"  the  relics  of 
the  late  north-easter.  But  these  wherries  will  live  in  any  sea  that  runs  on 
the  New  England  coast.  I  have  heard  of  the  Bank  fishermen  being  out  in 
them  for  days  together  when  their  vessel  could  not  lie  at  anchor  in  the  tre 
mendous  swell. 

White  Island  is  now  the  most  picturesque  of  the  group,  a  distinction  once 
conceded  to  Star.  It  owes  this  preference  to  its  light-house,  standing  on  a 
cliff  at  the  east  head  of  the  isle,  that  rises  full  fifty  feet  out  of  water;  at  least 
it  seemed  so  hi^h  to  me  as  I  lay  underneath  it  in  my  little  boat  at  low  tide. 
Against  this  cliff  the  waves  continually  swelled,  rushing  into  crannies,  where 


192  THE  NEW  ENGLAND   COAST. 

I  could  hear  them  gurgling  and  soughing  as  if  some  monster  were  choking  to 
death  in  their  depths. 

This  is  not  so  forbidding  as  Boon  Island,  but  it  is  enough.  The  light 
house  was  of  brick,  as  I  could  see  where  the  weather  had  worn  off  last  year's 
coat  of  whitewash.  It  was  not  yet  time  for  the  tender  to  come  and  brighten 
it  up  again.  The  long  gallery  conducting  from  the  keeper's  cottage  up  to 
the  tower  was  once  torn  away  from  its  fastenings,  and  hurled  into  the  deep 
gorge  of  the  rocks  which  it  spans.  I  saw  nothing  to  hinder  if  the  Atlantic 
had  a  mind  again  to  play  at  bowls  with  it. 

The  island  owes  its  name  to  the  blanched  appearance  of  its  crags,  little 
different  in  this  respect  from  its  fellows.  At  high  tides  the  westward  end  is 
isolated  from  the  rest,  making  two  islands  of  it  in  appearance,  but  inseparable 
as  the  Siamese  twins.  The  light-house  is  much  visited  in  summer,  especially 
by  those  of  a  romantic  turn,  and  by  those  to  whom  its  winding  stairs,  huge 
tanks  of  oil,  and  powerful  Fresnel,  possess  the  charm  of  novelty.  By  its  side 
is  the  section  of  an  earlier  building,  a  reminiscence  of  the  former  state  of  the 
Isles.  For  many  years  the  keeper  of  the  light  was  Thomas  B.  Laighton,  af 
terward  proprietor  of  Appledore.  On  account  of  some  political  disappoint 
ment,  he  removed  from  Portsmouth  to  the  Isles,  making,  it  is  said,  a  vow 
never  again  to  set  foot  on  the  main-land.  Fortune  followed  the  would-be 
recluse  against  his  will.  As  keeper  of  a  boarding-house  on  Appledore,  he  is 
reported  to  have  expressed  little  pleasure  at  the  coming  of  visitors,  even  while 
receiving  them  with  due  hospitality.  He  was  glad  of  congenial  spirits,  but 
loved  not  overmuch  the  stranger  within  his  gates.  His  sons  succeeded  to 
their  father  at  the  Appledore.  His  daughter1  has  told  with  charmmg'naivete 
the  story  of  the  light-house,  whose  lamps  she  often  trimmed  and  lighted  with 
her  own  hands. 

"I  lit  the  lamps  in  the  light-house  tower, 

For  the  sun  dropped  down  and  the  day  was  dead; 
They  shone  like  a  glorious  clustered  flower, 
Two  golden  and  five  red." 

In  1793  there  were  only  eight  light-houses  within  the  jurisdiction  of  Mas 
sachusetts.  Of  these  one  was  at  the  entrance  of  Nantucket,  and  another 
of  Boston  harbor.  There  were  twin  lights  on  the  north  point  of  Plymouth 
harbor,  on  Thatcher's  Island,  off  Cape  Ann,  and  at  the  northerly  end  of  Plum 
Island,  at  the  mouth  of  the  Merrimac.  The  latter  were  not  erected  until  1787. 
They  were  of  wood,  so  contrived  as  to  b'e  removed  at  pleasure,  in  order  to 
conform  to  the  shifting  of  the  sand-bar  on  which  they  stood.  The  lights  on 
Baker's  Island,  at  the  entrance  of  the  port  of  Salem,  were  not  built  until  1798. 

But  neither  compass,  sextant,  fixed  and  revolving  lights,  storm  signals. 
careful  soundings,  buoys,  nor  beacons,  with  all  the  improvements  in  modern 

1  Mrs.  Celia  Laighton  Thaxter. 


THE  ISLES  OF  SHOALS. 


193 


COVERED   WAY   AND   LIGHT-HOUSE,  WHITE   ISLAND. 

ship-building,  have  yet  reduced  traveling  over  the  sea  to  the  same  certainty 
as  traveling  over  the  land.  We  commit  ourselves  to  the  mercy  of  Father 
Xeptune  just  as  fearfully  as  ever,  and  annually  pay  a  costly  tribute  of  lives  for 
the  privilege  of  traversing  his  dominions. 

During  the  winter  of  18 — ,  so  runs  the  story,  the  keeper  of  this  light  was 
a  young  islander,  with  a  single  assistant.  For  nearly  a  week  north-easterly 
winds  had  prevailed,  bringing  in  from  the  sea  a  cold,  impenetrable  haze,  that 
enveloped  the  islands,  and  rendered  it  impossible  to  discern  objects  writhin  a 
cable's  length  of  the  light-house.  At  the  turn  of  the  tide  on  the  sixth  day, 
the  expected  storm  burst  upon  them  with  inconceivable  fury.  The  sea  grew 
blacker  beneath  the  dead  white  of  the  falling  snow.  The  waves,  urged  on 
by  the  ^ale,  made  a  fair  breach  over  the  light-house  rock,  driving  the  keeper 
from  his  little  dwelling  to  the  tower  for  shelter. 

The  violence  of  the  gale  increased  until  midnight,  when  it  began  to  lull. 

13 


194 


THE  NEW  ENGLAND  COAST. 


The  spirits  of  the  oppressed  watchers  rose  as  the  storm  abated.  One  made 
ready  a  smoking  platter  of  fish  and  potatoes,  while  the  other  prepared  to 
snatch  a  few  moments'  sleep.  While  thus  occupied,  a  loud  knock  was  heard 
at  the  door.  It  was  repeated.  The  two  men  stood  rooted  to  the  spot.  They 
knew  no  living  thing  except  themselves  was  on  the  island ;  they  knew  noth 
ing  of  mortal  shape  might  approach  it  in  such  a  fearful  tempest.  At  a  third 
knock  the  assistant,  who  was  preparing  their  frugal  meal,  fell  upon  his  knees, 
making  the  sign  of  the  cross,  and  calling  upon  all  the  saints  in  the  calendar 
for  protection,  like  the  good  Catholic  he  was. 

The  keeper,  who  had  time  to  recollect  himself,  advanced  to  the  door  and 
threw  it  open.  On  the  outside  stood  a  gigantic  negro,  of  muscular  frame, 
clothed  in  a  few  rags,  the  blood  streaming  from  twenty  gashes  in  his  body 
and  limbs.  A  brig  had  been  cast  away  on  the  rocks  a  few  rods  distant  from 
the  light,  and  the  intrepid  black  had  ventured  to  attempt  to  gain  the  light 
house. 

The  keeper  ran  to  the  spot.  Peering  into  the  darkness,  he  could  discover 
the  position  of  the  vessel  only  by  the  flapping  of  her  torn  sails  in  the  wind. 
The  roar  of  the  sea  drowned  every  other  sound.  If  the  shipwrecked  crew 
had  cried  for  help,  they  could  not  have  been  heard.  Availing  himself  of  his 
knowledge  of  every  inch  of  the  shore,  the  keeper  succeeded  in  gaining  a  pro 
jecting  ledge,  from  which  he  attracted  the  attention  of  those  on  board  the 
brig,  and  after  many  fruitless  efforts  a  line  was  got  to  land.  The  wreck,  as 
the  keeper  could  now  see,  was  driven  in  a  little  under  the  shelter  of  a  project 
ing  point.  Moments  were  precious.  He  sought  in  vain  for  some  projection 
on  which  he  might  fasten  his  rope.  He  did  not  hesitate,  but  wound  it  about 
his  body,  and  fixed  himself  as  firmly  as  he  could  in  a  crevice  of  the  rock. 
Here,  with  his  feet  planted  on  the  slippery  ledge,  where  every  sea  that  came 
in  drenched  him  to  the  skin,  the  brave  fellow  stood  fast  until  every  man  of 
the  crew  had  been  saved. 


WHITE   ISLAND   LIGHT. 


THE  ISLES   OF  SHOALS.  195 

There  is  nothing  that  moves  the  imagination  like  a  light-house.  John 
Quincy  Adams  said  when  he  saw  one  in  the  evening  he  was  reminded  of  the 
light  Columbus  saw  the  night  he  discovered  the  New  World.  I  have  been 
moved  to  call  them  telegraph  posts,  standing  along  the  coast,  each  flashing 
its  spark  from  cape  to  headland,  the  almost  commingling  rays  being  golden 
threads  of  happy  intelligence  to  all  mariners.  What  a  glorious  vision  it 
would  be  to  see  the  kindling  of  each  tower  from  Florida  to  Prima  Vista,  as 
the  broad  streets  of  the  city  are  lighted,  lamp  by  lamp ! 

Here  ended  my  wanderings  among  these  islands,  seated  like  immortals  in 
the  midst  of  eternity.  The  strong  south-westerly  current  bore  me  swiftly 
from  the  light-house  rock.  We  hoisted  sail,  and  laid  the  prow  of  our  little 
bark  for  the  river's  mouth ;  but  I  leaned  over  the  taffrail  and  looked  back  at 
the  beacon-tower  'til  it  faded  and  was  lost. 

"Even  at  this  distance  I  can  see  the  tides, 

Upheaving,  break  unheard  along  its  base; 
A  speechless  wrath  that  rises  and  subsides 
In  the  white  lip  and  tremor  of  the  face. 

"'Sail  on! 'it  says,  'Sail  on,  ye  stately  ships! 

And  with  your  floating  bridge  the  ocean  span ; 
Be  mine  to  guard  this  light  from  all  eclipse, 
Be  yours  to  bring  man  nearer  unto  man.'" 


WENTWOETH  HOUSE,  LITTLE  HARBOR. 


CHAPTER  XIII. 

NEWCASTLE    AND   NEIGHBORHOOD. 

"Yes — from  the  sepulchre  we'll  gather  flowers, 
Then  feast  like  spirits  in  their  promised  bowers, 
Then  plunge  and  revel  in  the  rolling  surf, 
Then  lay  our  limbs  along  the  tender  turf." — BYRON. 

A  NOTHEE  delightfully  ruinous  old  corner  is  Newcastle,  which  occupies 
-^-  the  island  opposite  Kittery  Point,  usually  called  Great  Island.  Be 
tween  Newcastle  and  Kittery  is  the  main  ship-channel,  with  deep  water  and 
plenty  of  sea-room.  On  the  south  of  Great  Island  is  another  entrance  called 
Little  Harbor,  with  shallow  water  and  sandy  bottom;  its  communication  with 
the  main  river  is  now  valueless,  and  little  used  except  by  fishing-craft  of  small 
tonnage. 

In  going  from  Portsmouth  there  are  three  bridges  to  be  crossed  to  reach 
the  town  of  Newcastle,  situated  on  the  northern  shore  of  the  island  ;  or,  if 
your  aim  be  the  southern  shore,  it  is  equally  a  pleasant  drive  or  wralk  to  the 
ancient  seat  of  the  Wentworths,  at  Little  Harbor,  from  which  you  may,  if  a 
ferry-man  be  not  at  hand,  hail  the  first  passing  boat  to  take  you  to  the  isl 
and.  I  went  there  by  the  former  route,  so  as  to  pass  an  hour  among  the 
tombstones  in  the  old  Point  of  Graves  burial-ground,  and  returned  by  the 
latter  in  order  to  visit  the  Wentworth  mansion. 

The  three  bridges  before  mentioned  connect  as  many  islands  with  Ports 
mouth.  They  were  built,  it  is  said,  at  the  suggestion  of  President  Monroe, 
when  he  found  Great  Island  somewhat  difficult  of  access. 


NEWCASTLE  AND  NEIGHBORHOOD. 


197 


There  appeared  some  symptoms  of  activity  in  the  island  fishery.     As  I 
passed  down,  I  noticed  two  Bankers  lying  in  the  diminutive  harbor,  and  an 
acre  or  so  of  ground 
spread  with  flakes, 

->  "JT^^rrr^ -~^^.r:~~ ~jp£n^Tgj     -f^  - 

on    which     codfish 
were  being  cured. 

The  little  cove 
which  makes  the 
harbor  of  Newcastle 
has  several  wharves, 
some  of  them  in 
ruins,  and  all  left 
'"high  and  dry"  at 
low  tide.  The  rot 
ting  timbers,  stick 
ing  in  crevices  of 
the  rocks,  hung  with 
sea-weed  and  stud 
ded  with  barnacles, 
told  very  plainly 
that  the  trade  of  the 
island  was  number 
ed  among  the  things 
of  the  past. 

Between  the  upper  end  of  Great  Island  and  the  town  of  Portsmouth  is  a 
broad,  deep,  still  basin,  called  in  former  times,  and  yet,  as  I  suspect,  by  some 
of  the  oldsters,  the  Pool.  This  was  the  anchorage  of  the  mast  ships,  which 
made  annual  voyages  between  England  and  the  Piscataqua,  convoyed  in  war 
time  by  a  vessel  of  force.  The  arrival,  lading,  and  departure  of  the  mast 
ships  were  the  three  events  of  the  year  in  this  old  sea-place.  Sometimes  as 
many  as  seven  were  loading  here  at  once,  even  as  early  as  1665.  In  the  Pool, 
the  Astrea,  a  twenty-gun  ship,  was  destroyed  by  tire  one  cold  morning  in 
January,  1744. 

The  Earl  of  Bellomont,  an  Irish  peer,  writes  to  the  Lords  of  Trade,  in 
1699,  of  the  Piscataqua:  "It  is  a  most  noble  harbour,"  says  his  lordship; 
"the  biggest  ships  the  king  hath  can  lie  against  the  bank  at  Portsmouth." 
He  then  advises  the  building  of  war  vessels  there  for  the  king's  service ;  and 
mentions  that  Charles  II.  had  complimented  the  French  king  with  the 
draughts  of  the  best  ships  in  the  British  navy,  and  had  thereby  "given  vent 
to  that  precious  secret." 

In  the  day  when  all  of  old  Portsmouth  was  crowded  between  what  is 
now  Pleasant  Street  and  the  river,  it  is  easy  to  imagine  the  water-side  streets 
and  alleys  frequented  by  sailors  in  pigtails  and  petticoats;  the  mighty  ca- 


POINT   OF   GKAVES. 


198 


THE  NEW  ENGLAND  COAST. 


rousals  and  roaring  choruses;  the  dingy,  well-smoked  dram-shops;  the  stews 
and  slums  of  back  streets,  and  the  jolly  larks  and  affrays  with  the  night-watch. 
Rear-admiral  "  the  brave  Benbow,  sirs,"  has  landed  at  these  old  quays  from  his 
barge,  followed  as  closely  as  a  rolling  gait  would  permit  by  some  old  sea-dog 
of  a  valet,  with  cutlass  stuck  in  a  broad,  leathern  belt,  exactly  at  the  middle 
of  his  back.  The  admiral  was  doubtless  on  his  way  to  some  convivial  .ren 
counter,  where  the  punch  was  strong,  and  where  the  night  not  infrequently 
terminated  little  to  the  advantage  of  the  quarter-deck  over  the  forecastle. 

The  ships  of  that  day  were  wonderfully  made.  Their  bows  crouched  low 
in  the  water,  their  curiously  carved  and  ornamented  sterns  rose  high  above 
it.  The  bowsprit  was  crossed  by  a  heavy  spar,  on  which  a  square-sail  was 
hoisted.  Chain  cables  had  not  been  invented,  and  hempen  ones,  as  thick  as 
the  mainmast,  held  the  ship  at  her  anchors.  Colored  battle  lanterns  were 
fixed  above  the  taffrail  ;  watches  and  broadsides  were  regulated  by  the  hour 
glass.  The  sterns  and  bulging  quarter-galleries  of  Spanish,  French,  and  Por 
tuguese  war  ships  were  so  incrusted  with  gilding  it  seemed  a  pity  to  batter 
them  with  shot.  Think  of  Nelson  knocking  the  Holy  Trinity  into  a  cocked 
hat,  or  the  Twelve  Apostles  into  the  middle  of  next  week  ! 

There  are  many  old  houses  on  Great  Island.     The  quaintness  of  one  that 

stands  within  twen 
ty  yards  of  the  river 
is  always  remarked 
in  sailing  by.  I  could 
not  learn  its  age,  but 
hazard  the  conjec 
ture  it  was  there  be 
fore  James  II.  abdi 
cated. 

The  visitor,  as  in 
duty  bound,  should 
go  to  the  chamber 
of  the  selectmen, 
where  the  town  char 
ter  given  by  William 
and  Mary,  in  1693, 
is  displayed  on  the 
wall,  engrossed  in  al- 

unintelligiblc 


OLD   HOUSE,  GREAT    ISLAND. 

black-letter.1     The  records  of  Newcastle  have  had  a  curious  history.     After 
a  disappearance  of  nearly  fifty  years,  they  were  recovered  within  a  year  or 


1  The  Act  of  Corporation,  though  well  preserved,  appeared  little  valued ;  it  hung  by  a  corner 
and  in  a  light  that  was  every  day  dimming  the  ink  with  which  it  had  been  engrossed. 


NEWCASTLE  AND  NEIGHBORHOOD. 


199 


two  in  England.  The  first  volume  is  bound  in  vellum,  and,  though  somewhat 
dog-eared,  is  perfect.  The  entries  are  in  a  fair  round-hand,  beginning  in  1693, 
when  Lieutenant-governor  Usher  signed  the  grant  for  the  township  of  New 
castle. 

Among  the  earliest  records,  I  noticed  one  of  five  shillings  paid  for  a  pair  of 
stocks  ;  and  of  a  gallery  put  up,  in  1694,  in  the  meeting-house,  for  the  women 
to  sit  in.  Any  townsman  entertaining  a  stranger  above  fourteen  days,  with 
out  acquainting  the  selectmen,  was  to  be  fined.  What  would  now  be  thought 
of  domiciliary  visits  like  the  following?  "One  householder  or  more  to  walk 
every  day  in  sermon-time  with  the  constable  to  every  publick-house  in  ye 
town,  to  suppress  ill  orders,  and,  if  they  think  convenient,  to  private  houses 
also." 

I  found  the  town  quiet  enough,  but  the  youngsters  noisy  and  ill-bred. 
There  seemed  also  to  be  an  unusual  number  of  loiterers  about  the  village 
stores;  I  sometimes  passed  a  row  of  them,  squatted, like  greyhounds,  on  their 
heels,  in  the  sun.  Those  I  noticed  whittled,  tossed  coppers,  or  laughed  and 
talked  loudly.  Many  of  the  men  were  employed  at  Kittery  Navy  Yard. 

From  observation  and  inquiry  I  am  well  assured  our  Government  dock 
yards  are,  as  a  rule,  of  little  benefit  to  the  neighboring  population.  The  Gov 
ernment  pays  a  higher  price  for  less  labor  than  private  persons  find  it  for 
their  interest  to  do.  The  work  is  intermittent;  and  it  happens  quite  too 
frequently  that  the  dock-yard  employe  is  always  expecting  to  be  taken  on, 
and  will  not  go  to  work  outside  of  the 
yard ;  he  is  especially  unwilling  at 
wages  less  than  the  Government  ordi 
narily  pays,  upon  which  labor  in  the 
vicinity  of  the  yard  is  usually  gauged. 

A  charming  ramble  of  an  afternoon 
is  to  Fort  Constitution,  built  on  a  pro 
truding  point  of  rocks  washed  by  the 
tide.  When  I  saw  it  the  old  fortress 
was  casting  its  shell,  lobster -like,  for 
a  stronger.  The  odd  old  foot-paths 
among  the  ledges  zigzag  now  to  the 
right  or  left,  as  they  are  thrust  aside 
by  intruding  ledges.  Much  history  is  contained  within  the  four  walls  of  the 
work.1  Adjoining  is  a  light-house,  originally  erected  in  1771. 

1  The  reader  will  do  well  to  consult  Belknap's  admirable  "  History  of  New  Hampshire,"  vol.  ii. ; 
Adams's  "Annals,"  or  Brewster's  "Rambles  about  Portsmouth."  Some  sort  of  defense  was  be 
gun  here  very  early.  In  1GG5  the  commissioners  of  Charles  II.  attempted  to  fortify,  but  were  met 
by  a  prohibition  from  Massachusetts.  In  1700  there  existed  on  Great  Island  a  fort  mounting 
thirty  guns,  pronounced  by  Earl  Bellomont  incapable  of  defending  the  river.  Colonel  Romer  made 
the  plan  of  a  new  work,  and  recommended  a  strong  tower  on  the  point  of  Fryer's  (Gerrish's)  Island, 


OLD   TOWER,  NEWCASTLE. 


200  THE  NEW  ENGLAND   COAST. 

While  engaged  in  sketching  the  gate -way  and  portcullis  of  old  Fort 
Constitution,  I  was  accosted  by  a  person,  with  a  strong  German  accent,  who 
repeated,  word  for  word,  as  I  should  judge,  a  mandate  of  the  War  Office 
against  the  taking  of  any  of  its  old  ruins  by  wandering  artists.  He  then 
walked  away,  leaving  me  to  finish  my  sketch  without  further  interruption. 
On  a  rocky  eminence  overlooking  the  fortress  is  a  martello  tower,  built 

during  the  war  of  1812,  to  guarantee 
the  main  work  against  a  landing  on 
the  beach  at  the  south  side.  It  has 
three  embrasures,  and  was  begun  on 
a  Sunday,  while  two  English  frigates 
were  lying  off  the  Isles  of  Shoals. 
Sally-port  and  casemates  are  choked 
with  debris,  the  parapet  grass-grown, 
and  the  whole  in  picturesque  ruin. 
Many  of  these  towers  were  erected 
on  the  south  coast  of  England  during 
the  Napoleonic  wars  to  repel  the  ex- 

GATEWAY,  OLD  FORT   CONSTITUTION.  ^^  invasjon> 

Another  pleasant  walk  is  to  Little  Harbor,  taking  by  the  way  a  look  at 
the  old  house  near  Jaffrey's  Point,  that  is  verging  on  two  hundred  years,  yet 
seems  staunch  and  strong.  The  owner  believes  it  to  be  the  same  in  which 
Governor  Cranfield1  held  colonial  courts.  This  was  one  of  the  attractive 
sites  of  the  island,  until  Government  began  the  construction  of  formidable 
earth-works  at  a  short  distance  from  the  farmstead.  The  Isles  of  Shoals  are 
plainly  distinguished,  and  with  a  field-glass  the  little  church  on  Star  Island 
may  be  made  out  in  clear  weather.  I  enjoyed  a  walk  on  the  rampart  at 
evening,  when  the  lights  on  Whale's  Back,  Boon  Island,  White  Island,  and 
Squam  were  seen  flashing  their  take-heed  through  the  darkness. 

Little  Harbor,  where  there  is  a  summer  hotel,  was  the  site  of  the  first  set 
tlement  on  the  island.  At  Odiorne's  Point,  on  the  opposite  shore,  was  com 
menced,  in  1623,  the  settlement  of  New  Hampshire.  It  is  now  proposed  to 
commemorate  the  event  itself,  and  the  spot  on  which  the  first  house  was 
built,  by  a  monument.2 


with  batteries  on  Wood  and  Clark's  islands.  In  December,  1774,  John  Langdon  and  John  Sul 
livan  committed  open  rebellion  by  leading  a  party  to  seize  the  powder  here.  The  fort  was  then 
called  William  and  Mary.  Old  Fort  Constitution  has  the  date  of  1808  on  the  key-stone  of  the 
arch  of  the  gate-way.  Its  walls  were  carried  to  a  certain  height  with  rough  stone  topped  with 
brick.  It  was  a  parallelogram,  and  mounted  barbette  guns  only.  The  present  work  is  of  gran 
ite,  inclosing  the  old  walls.  The  new  earth-works  on  Jaffrey's  Point  and  Gerrish's  Island  render 
it  of  little  importance. 

1  Governor  of  New  Hampshire  from  1G82  to  1G85.     The  house  is  the  residence  of  Mr.  Albeo. 

2  Odiorne's  Point  is  in  Rye,  New  Hampshire.     The  settlement  began  under  the  auspices  of  a 


NEWCASTLE   AND  NEIGHBORHOOD. 


201 


Captain  John  Mason  is  known  as  the  founder  of  New  Hampshire.  His 
biography  is  interwoven  with  the  times  of  the  giant  Richelieu  and  the  pigmy 
Buckingham.  He  was  treasurer  and  pay-master  of  the  king's  armies  during 
the  war  with  Spain.  He  was  governor  of  Portsmouth  Castle  when  Felton 
struck  his  knife  into  the  duke's  left  side;  it  is  said,  in  Mason's  own  house. 
The  name  of  Portsmouth  in  New  Hampshire  was  given  by  him  to  this  out 
growth  of  Portsmouth  in  old  Hampshire.  At  a  time  when  all  England  was 
fermenting,  it  seems  passing  strange  Gorges  and  Mason  should  have  persisted 
in  their  scheme  to  gain  a  lodgment  in  New  England. 

In  Sir  Walter  Scott's  "Ivanhoe"  the  following  passage  occurs:  "The  an 
cient  forest  of  Sherwood  lay  between  Sheffield  and  Doncaster.  The  remains 
of  this  extensive  wood  are  still  to  be  seen  at  the  noble  seat  of  Wentworth. 
*  *  *  Here  hunt 
ed  of  yore  the  fab 
ulous  Dragon  of 
Wantley,  and  here 
were  fought  many 
of  the  most  des 
perate  battles  dur 
ing  the  Civil  Wars 
of  the  Roses;  and 
here  also  flour 
ished  in  ancient 
times  those  bands 
of  gallant  outlaws 
whose  deeds  have 
been  rendered  so 
popular  in  English 
story." 

Reginald  Went 
worth,  lord  of  the 
manor  of  Went 
worth,  in  Berks, 
A.D.  1066,  is  con 
sidered  the  com 
mon  ancestor  of  the  Wentworths  of  England  and  America.  The  unfortunate 
Earl  of  Strafford  was  a  Wentworth.  On  the  dissolution  of  the  monasteries, 


WENTWORTH,  WENTWORTH   HOUSE,  LITTLE   HARBOR. 


company,  in  which  Gorges  and  Mason  were  leading  spirits.  Their  grant  covered  the  territory  be 
tween  the  Merrimac  and  Sagadahoc  rivers.  Under  its  authority,  David  Thompson  and  others  set 
tled  at  Little  Harbor,  and  built  what  was  subsequently  known  as  Mason's  Hall.  Disliking  his  situ 
ation,  Thompson  removed  the  next  spring  to  the  island  now  bearing  his  name  in  Boston  Bay. 
From  this  nucleus  sprung  the  settlements  at  Great  Island  and  Portsmouth.  The  settlement  at 
Hilton's  Point  was  nearlv  coincident. 


202 


THE  NEW  ENGLAND  COAST. 


Newstead  Abbey  was  conferred  on  Sir  John  Byron  by  Henry  VIII.  Its  site 
was  in  the  midst  of  the  fertile  and  interesting  region  once  known  as  Sherwood 
Forest.  Here  was  passed  the  early  youth  of  the  brilliant  and  gifted  George, 
Lord  Byron,  and  in  the  little  church  of  Newstead  his  remains  were  laid.  The 
name  and  title  of  Baroness  Wentworth  were  in  1856  assumed  by  Lady  Byron, 
whose  grandfather  was  Sir  Edward  Noel,  Lord  Wentworth. 

Another  of  the  distinguished  of  this  illustrious  family  was  the  Marquis  of 

Rockingham,  who  voted  for  the  re 
peal  of  the  Stamp  Act,  and  acted 
with  Chatham  against  Lord  North.1 
It  was  at  him,  while  minister,  the 
pasquinade  was  leveled, 

"You   had  better   declare,  which  you  may 

without  shocking  'em, 
The  nation's  asleep  and  the  minister  Rock- 
ing'em." 

The  seat  of  the  Wentworths  at 
Little  Harbor  is  at  the  mouth  of 
Sagamore  Creek,  not  more  than  two 
miles  from  town.  Among  a  group 
of  aged  houses  in  the  older  quar 
ter  of  Portsmouth,  that  of  Samuel 
Wentworth  is  still  pointed  out.2 
His  monument  may  also  be  seen  in 
the  ancient  burial-place  of  Point  of  Graves.  The  family  seem  to  have  been 
statesmen  by  inheritance.  There  were  three  chief-magistrates  of  New  Hamp 
shire  of  the  name,  viz. :  John,  the  son  of  Samuel;  Benning,  the  son  of  John  ; 
and  John,  the  nephew  of  Benning. 

The  exterior  of  the  mansion  does  not  of  itself  keep  touch  and  time  with 
the  preconceived  idea  of  colonial  magnificence.  Its  architectural  deformity 
would  have  put  Ruskin  beside  himself.  A  rambling  collection  of  buildings, 
seemingly  the  outgrowth  of  different  periods  and  conditions,  are  incorpora 
ted  into  an  inharmonious  whole.  The  result  is  an  oddity  in  wood.  Doubt 
less  the  builder  was  content  with  it.  If  so,  I  have  little  disposition  to  be 
critical. 


MARQUIS  OF  KOCKINGHAM. 


1  Peace  with  the  thirteen  colonies  was  proposed  under  the  administration  of  Rockingham, 
about  the  last  official  act  of  his  life.     His  name  is  often  met  with  in  Portsmouth. 

2  The  house  stands  at  the  north  end  of  Manning,  formerly  Wentworth  Street,  and  is  thought 
from  its  size  to  have  been  a  public-house.     The  same  house  was  also  occupied  by  Lieutenant- 
Governor  John,  son  of  Samuel  Wentworth.     Samuel  was  the  son  of  William,  the  first  settler  of 
the  name.     He  had  been  an  innkeeper,  and  had  swung  his  sign  of  the  "Dolphin  "  on  Great  Island. 
Hon.  John  Wentworth,  of  Chicago,  is  the  biographer  of  his  family. 


NEWCASTLE  AND   NEIGHBORHOOD. 


203 


Beyond  this,  the  visitor  may  not  refuse  his  unqualified  approval  of  the 
site,  which  is  charming,  of  the  surroundings — the  mansion  was  embowered  in 
blooming  lilacs  when 
I  saw  it — and  of  the 
general  air  of  snug- 
ness  and  of  comfort, 
rather  than  elegance, 
which  seems  the 
proper  atmosphere 
of  the  Went  worth 
House. 

Built  in  1750,  it 
commands  a  view  up 
and  down  Little  Har 
bor,  though  conceal 
ed  by  an  eminence 
from  the  road.  I 
had  a  brief  glimpse 
of  it  while  going  on 
Great  Island  via  the 
bridges.  It  is  said  it 
originally  contained 
as  many  as  fifty-two 
rooms,  though  by  the 
removal  of  a  good- 
sized  tenement  to  the 
opposite  island  the 
number  has  been  di 
minished  to  forty- 
five.  There  is,  there 
fore,  plenty  of  elbow- 
room.  The  cellar  was 
sometimes  used  as  a 
stable:  it  was  large 
enough  to  have  ac 
commodated  a  troop, 
or,  at  a  pinch,  a  squad 
ron. 

Prepared  for  an 

interior  as  little  at-  IN  TUE  WENTWOKTH  H°LSE,  LITTLE  HARBOR. 

tractive  as  the  outside,  the  conjecture  of  the  visitor  is  again  at  fault,  for  this 
queer  old  bundle  of  joiners'  patchwork  contains  apartments  which  indicate 
that  the  old  beau,  Benning  Wentwortb,  cared  less  for  the  rind  than  the  fruit. 


204 


THE  NEW  ENGLAND  COAST. 


''Within  unwonted  splendors  met  the  eye, 
Panels  and  floors  of  oak  and  tapestry ; 
Carved  chimney-pieces  where  on  brazen  dogs 
Reveled  and  roared  the  Christmas  fires  of  logs ; 
Doors  opening  into  darkness  unawares, 
Mysterious  passages  and  flights  of  stairs ; 
And  on  the  walls  in  heavy  gilded  frames, 
The  ancestral  Wentworths  with  old  Scripture  names." 

The  council  chamber  contains  a  gem  of  a  mantel,  enriched  with  elaborate 
carving  of  busts  of  Indian  princesses,  chaplets,  and  garlands — a  year's  labor, 
it  is  said,  of  the  workman.  The  wainscot  is  waist-high,  and  heavy  beams 
divide  the  ceiling.  As  we  entered  we  noticed  the  rack  in  which  the  muskets 
of  the  Governor's  guard  were  deposited. 

But  what  catches  the  eye  of  the  visitor  soonest  and  retains  it  longest, 
is  the  portraits  on  the  walls.  First  is  a  canvas  representing  the  Earl  of 

Straiford1  dictating  to 
his  secretary,  in  the 
Tower,,  on  the  day  be 
fore  his  execution.  At 
his  trial,  says  an  eye 
witness,  "he  was  always 
in  the  same  suit  of  black, 
as  in  doole "  (mourn 
ing).  When  the  lieu 
tenant  of  the  Tower  of 
fered  him  a  coach,  lest 
he  should  be  torn  in 
pieces  by  the  mob 
in  going  to  execution, 
he  replied,  "I  die  to 
please  the  people,  and  I 
will  die  in  their  own 
way." 

Here   is    a   portrait 
from  the  brush  of  Cop 
ley,  who  reveled  in  rich 
draperies    and    in    the 
accessories   of  his  por 
traits  quite  as  much  as  in  painting  rounded  arms,  beautiful  hands,  and  shapely 
This  one  in  pink  satin,  with  over-dress  of  white  lace,  short  sleeves 


LADY   HANCOCK  S    POKTKAIT   (BY   COPLEY)    IN   THE    WENTWOKTH 
HOUSE. 


figures. 


1  His  second  wife  was  Henrietta  du  Roy,  daughter  of  Frederick  Charles  du  Roy,  generalissimo 
to  the  King  of  Denmark. 


NEWCASTLE  AND  NEIGHBORHOOD.  205 

with  deep  ruffles,  and  coquettish  lace  cap,  is  Dorothy  Quincy,  the  greatest 
belle  and  breaker  of  hearts  of  her  day.  It  was  not,  it  is  said,  her  fault  that 
she  became  Mrs.  Governor  Hancock,  instead  of  Mrs.  Aaron  Burr.  When  in 
later  years,  as  Madam  Scott,  she  retained  all  the  vivacity  of  eighteen,  she  was 
fond  of  relating  how  the  hand  now  seen  touching  rather  than  supporting  her 
cheek,  had  been  kissed  by  marquises,  dukes,  and  counts,  who  had  experienced 
the  hospitality  of  the  Hancock  mansion  ;  and  how  D'Estaing,  put  to  bed  after 
too  much  wine,  had  torn  her  best  damask  coverlet  with  the  spurs  he  had  for 
gotten  to  remove. 

Other  portraits  are — Of  Queen  Christina  of  Sweden,  who  looks  down  with 
the  same  pitiless  eyes  that  exulted  in  the  murder  of  her  equerry,  Monaldeschi ; 
one  said  to  be  Secretary  Waldron,  a  right  noble  countenance  and  martial 
figure;  and  of  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Jacob  Sheaffe. 

I  could  be  loquacious  on  the  subject  of  these  portraits,  the  fading  impres 
sions  of  histories  varied  or  startling,  of  experiences  more  curious  than  profita 
ble  to  narrate.  In  their  presence  we  take  a  step  backward  into  the  past,  that 
past  whose  lessons  we  will  not  heed.  Hawthorne,  standing  before  a  wall  cov 
ered  with  such  old  counterfeits,  was  moved  to  say :  "  Nothing  gives  a  strong 
er  idea  of  old  worm-eaten  aristocracy,  of  a  family  being  crazy  with  age,  and 
of  its  being  time  that  it  was  extinct,  than  these  black,  dusty,  faded,  antique- 
dressed  portraits." 

The  old  furniture  standing  about  was  richly  carved,  and  covered  with 
faded  green  damask.  In  the  billiard-room  was  an  ancient  spinet,  quite  as 
much  out  of  tune  as  out  of  date.  Doubtless,  the  flashing  of  white  hands 
across  those  same  yellow  keys  has  often  struck  an  answering  chord  in  the 
breasts  of  colonial  youth.  Here  are  more  portraits;  and  a  buffet,  a  side 
board,  and  a  sedan-chair.  Punch  has  flowed,  and  laughter  echoed  here. 

The  reader  knows  the  pretty  story,  so  gracefully  told  by  Mr.  Longfellow, 
of  Martha  Hilton,  who  became  the  second  wife  of  Governor  Benning,1  and 
thus  Lady  Wentworth  of  the  Hall. 

We  can  see  her  as  she  goes  along  the  street,  swinging  the  pail,  a  trifle 
heavy  for  her,  and  splashing  with  the  water  her  naked  feet.  We  hear  her 
ringing  laughter,  and  the  saucy  answer  to  Mistress  Stavers  in  her  furbelows, 
as  that  buxom  landlady  flings  at  her,  in  passing,  the  sharp  reproof: 

"O  Martha  Hilton!     Fie!   how  dare  you  go 
About  the  town  half-dressed  and  looking  so?" 

The  poet's  tale  is  at  once  a  history  and  a  picture,  full  of  pretty  conceits 
and  picturesque  situations.  Fancy  the  battered  effigy  of  the  Earl  of  Halifax 
on  the  innkeeper's  sign  falling  at  the  feet  of  Mrs.  Stavers  to  declare  his  pas 
sion. 

1  Bennington,  Vermont,  is  named  from  Governor  Wentworth. 


206 


THE  NEW  ENGLAND  COAST. 


But  Benning  Went- 
worth,governorthongh 

he  was,  was  none  too 
good  for  Martha  Hil 
ton.1  It  was  the  pride 
of  the  Hiltons  made 
her  say,  "I  yet  shall 
ride  in  my  own  chari 
ot."  The  widowed  gov 
ernor  was  gouty,  pas 
sionate,  and  had  im 
bibed  with  his  long 
residence  in  Spain  the 
hauteur  of  the  Span 
iard.  He  left  office  in 
1776  in  disgrace. 

The  last  of  the  co 
lonial  Wentworths  was 
Sir  John,  in  whose  fa 
vor  his  uncle  had  been 
allowed  to  screen  him 
self  by  a  resignation. 
There  are  some  odd  co 
incidences  in  the  fami 
ly  records  of  both  un 
cle  and  nephew.  The 
former's  widow  made 
a  second  marriage  to  a  GOVERNOR  BENNING  WENTWORTH. 

O 

Wentworth ;  the  latter  married  his  widowed  cousin,  Frances  Wentworth.9 

The  mansion  of  Sir  John  may  be  seen  in   Pleasant  Street,  Portsmouth. 
He  was  the  last  royal  governor  of  New  Hampshire.     John  Adams  mentions 


1  Her  grandfather,  Hon.  Eichard  Hilton,  of  Newmarket,  was  grandson  of  Edward,  the  original 
settler  of  Dover,  New  Hampshire,  and  had  been  a  justice  of  the  Superior  Court  of  the  Province. — 
JOHN  WENTWORTH. 

2  Frances  Deering  Wentworth  married  John  just  two  weeks  after  the  decease  of  her  first  hus 
band,  Theodore  Atkinson,  also  her  cousin,  and  in  the  same  church  from  which  he  had  been  buried 
— matter  for  such  condolence    and  reproof  as  Talleyrand's  celebrated  "Ah,  madame,"and  "Oh, 
madame."     Benning  Wentworth's  widow  married  Colonel  Michael  Wentworth,  said  to  have  been 
a  retired  British  officer.     He  was  a  great  horseman  and  a  free  liver.     Once  he  rode  from  Boston 
to  Portsmouth  between  sunrise  and  sunset.     Having  run  through  a  handsome  estate,  he  died  un 
der  suspicion  of  suicide,  leaving  his  own  epitaph,  "  I  have  eaten  my  cake."     Colonel  Michael  was 
the  host,  at  the  Hall,  of  Washington.     In  1817,  the  house  at  Little  Harbor  was  purchased  by 
Charles  Gushing,  whose  widow  was  a  daughter  of  Jacob  Sheaffe. 


NEWCASTLE   AND  NEIGHBORHOOD. 


207 


that  as  he  was  leaving  his  box  at  the  theatre  one  night  in  Paiis,  a  gentleman 
seized  him  by  the  hand :  " '  Governor  Wentworth,  sir,'  said  the  gentleman. 
At  first  I  was  embarrassed,  and  knew  not  how  to  behave  toward  him.  As 
my  classmate  and  friend  at  college,  and  ever  since,  I  could  have  pressed  him 
to  my  bosom  with  most  cordial  affection.  But  we  now  belonged  to  two  dif 
ferent  nations,  at  war  with  each  other,  and  consequently  were  enemies." 

The  king  afterward  gave  Sir  John  the  government  of  Nova  Scotia.  The 
poet  Moore  mentions  the  baronet's  kind  treatment  of  him  in  1805,  during  his 
American  tour.  He  is  said  to  have  kept  sixteen  horses  in  his  stable  at 
Portsmouth,  and  to  have  been  a  free-liver.  A  man  of  unquestioned  ability 
to  govern,  who  went  down  under  the  great  revolutionary  wave  of  1775,  but 
rose  again  to  the  surface  and  struck  boldly  out. 

There  is  now  in  the  possession  of  James  Lenox,  of  New  York,  a  portrait 
of  the  baronet's  wife,  by  Copley,  painted  in  his  best  manner.  The  lady  was 
a  celebrated  beauty.  The  face  has  caught  an  expression,  indescribably  arch, 
as  if  its  owner  repressed  an  invincible  desire  to  torment  the  artist.  In  it  are 
set  a  pair  of  eyes,  black  and 
dangerous,  with  high-arched 
brows,  a  tempting  yet  mock 
ing  mouth,  and  nose  a  little 
retrousse.  Her  natural  hair 
is  decorated  with  pearls;  a 
string  of  them  encircles  her 
throat.  The  corsage  is  very 
low,displaying  a  pairof  white 
shoulders  such  as  the  poet  im 
agined  : 

"  She  has  a  bosom  as  white  as  snow, 

Take  cave ! 

She  knows  how  much  it  is  best  to 
show, 

Beware!  beware!" 

In  1777  Baron  Steuben 
arrived  in  Portsmouth,  in 
the  Flamand.  Franklin  had 
snubbed  him,  St.  Germain 
urged  him, but  Beaumarchais 
offered  him  a  thousand  louis-d'or.1  On  the  day  the  baron  joined  the  army  at 
Valley  Forge  his  name  was  the  watch-word  in  all  the  camps. 

1  "Paul  Jones  shall  equip  his  Bonne  Homme  Richard;  weapons,  military  stores  can  be  smug 
gled  over  (if  the  English  do  not  seize  them);  wherein,  once  more  Beaumarchais,  dimly  as  the  Giant 
Smuggler,  becomes  visible — filling  his  own  lank  pocket  withal." — CARLYLE,  "French  Revolu 
tion,"  vol.  i.,  p.  43. 


BAKOX   STEUBEN. 


WITCH  HILL,  SALEM. 


CHAPTER  XIV. 

SALEM   VILLAGE,  AND    '92. 

Banquo.    ' '  Were  such  things  here  as  we  do  speak  about  ? 
Or  have  we  eaten  of  the  insane  root, 
That  takes  the  reason  prisoner?" — Macbeth. 

SALEM  VILLAGE  has  a  sorrowful  celebrity.  It  would  seem  as  if  an  ad 
verse  spell  still  hung  over  it,  for  in  the  changes  brought  by  time  to  its 
neighbors  it  has  no  part,  remaining,  as  it  is  likely  to  remain,  Salem  Village — 
that  is  to  say,  distinctively  antiquated,  sombre,  and  lifeless. 

A  collection  of  houses  scattered  along  the  old  high-road  from  Salem  to 
Andover,  decent-looking,  brown-roofed,  though  humble  dwellings,  a  somewhat 
pretending  village  church,  and  pleasant,  home-like,  parsonage;  old  trees,  part 
ly  verdant,  partly  withered,  stretching  naked  boughs  above  the  gables  of 
houses  even  older  than  themselves,  embody  something  of  the  impressions  of 
oft-repeated  walks  in  what  is  known  as  the  "Witch  Neighborhood." 

The  village  contains  one  central  point  of  paramount  interest.  It  is  an  in 
closed  space  of  grass  ground,  a  short  distance  from  the  principal  and  only 
street,  reached  by  a  well-trodden  by-path.  Within  this  now  naked  field  once 
stood  a  house,  with  a  garden  and  orchard  surrounding.  Of  the  house  nothing 
remains  except  a  slight  depression  in  the  soil ;  of  the  orchard  and  garden 
there  is  no  trace  ;  yet  hard  by  I  chanced  on  a  bank  of  aromatic  thyme  once 
held  of  singular  potency  in  witchcraft  —  as  in  the  "Faerie  Queen,"  the  tree 
laments  to  the  knight: 

"I  chanced  to  see  her  in  her  proper  hue, 
Bathing  herself  in  origan  and  thyme." 


SALEM  VILLAGE,  AND  '92.  209 

In  this  quiet,  out-of-the-way  little  nook,  Salem  witchcraft  had  its  begin 
ning.  The  sunken  cavity  is  what  remains  of  the  Ministry  House,  so  called, 
pulled  down  in  1785  (not  a  day  too  soon);  the  den  of  error  in  which  the 
plague-spot  first  appeared.  No  one  would  have  thought,  standing  here,  that 
he  surveyed  the  focus  of  malevolence  so  deadly  as  the  wretched  delirium 
of '92. 

The  well-informed  reader  is  everywhere  familiar  with  the  origin  and  de 
velopment  of  Salem  witchcraft.1  It  has  employed  the  best  pens  as  it  has  puz 
zled  the  best  brains  among  us ;  until  to-day  the  whole  affair  remains  envel 
oped  in  a  mystery  which  the  theories  of  nearly  two  hundred  years  have  failed 
wholly  to  penetrate. 

The  writer  has  had  frequent  occasion  to  know  how  wide-spread  is  the  be 
lief  that  witchcraft  began  in  New  England,  and  particularly  in  Salern.  This 
is  to  be  classed  among  popular  errors  upon  which  repeated  denials  have  lit 
tle  effect.  Nevertheless,  witchcraft  did  not  originate  in  New  England ;  no, 
nor  in  old  England  either,  for  that  matter.  The  belief  in  it  was  earlier  than 
the  Mayflower,  older  than  the  Norman  Conquest,  and  antedated  the  Roman 
Empire.  The  first  written  account  of  it  is  contained  in  Scripture.2 

Saul  incurred  the  anger  of  God  by  consulting  the  Witch  of  Endor.  Joan 
of  Arc  was  burned  as  a  witch  in  1431.  About  fifty  years  later  the  Church 
of  Rome  fulminated  a  bull  against  witchcraft.  The  number  of  suspected 
persons  already  burned  at  the  stake  or  subjected  to  the  most  cruel  torments 
is  estimated  at  many  thousands. 

In  taking  leave  of  the  Dark  Ages  we  do  not  take  our  leave  of  witchcraft. 
More  than  a  hundred  thousand  victims  had  perished  in  Germany  and  France 
alone  before  the  Mayflower  sailed  from  Delft.  The  Pilgrims,  I  engage,  be 
lieved  in  it  to  a  man. 

Old  England  !  Why,  the  statute  against  witchcraft  was  not  repealed  un 
til  1736,  in  the  second  George's  time,  though  it  had  lain  dormant  some  years. 
The  last  recorded  execution  in  the  British  Islands  occurred  in  Scotland,  as 
late  as  1722.  The  sixth  chapter  of  Lord  Coke's  "Third  Institutes"  is  de 
voted  to  a  panegyric  on  the  statutes  for  punishing  "  conjuration,  sorcery, 
witchcraft,  or  enchantment."  The  laws  of  England  were  the  fundamental 
law  of  New  England  ;  witchcraft  was  in  the  list  of  recognized  crimes  through 
out  Christendom. 

France,  under  Louis  le  Grand,  whose  style  history  will  change,  notwith 
standing  his  famous  "U  etat  c'est  moi"  to  Louis  the  Little,  was  irnmeshed  in 
the  net  of  superstition.  The  highest  personages  of  the  court  resorted  to  the 
astrologers  for  horoscopes,  charms,  or  philters.  We  might  see  later  the  magic 

1  Mather  and  Hutchinson  deal  largely  with  it.  Upham  and  Drake  have  compiled,  arranged, 
and  analyzed  it. 

3  Exod.  xxii.,  18  (1491  B.C.):  "Thou  shall  nol  suffer  a  witch  lo  live." 

14 


210  THE  NEW  ENGLAND  COAST. 

and  sorcery  of  the  sixteenth  century  and  of  the  seventeenth  transformed  into 
studies  in  chemistry  under  the  Regency,  and  become  experiments  in  magnet 
ism  in  the  eighteenth  century. 

The  settlers  in  New  England,  who  brought  all  their  Old- World  supersti 
tions  with  them,  were  not  surprised  to  find  the  Indians  fully  impregnated 
with  a  belief  in  magic  equal  to  their  own.  The  wonderful  cures  of  the  Indian 
magicians  or  medicine-men  were  thoroughly  believed  in,  and  are  vouched  for 
by  white  evidence.  One  of  their  favorite  methods  of  revenging  private  in 
jury  was  by  enchanting  a  hair,  which  entered  the  bodies  of  their  enemies  and 
killed  them  while  sleeping.  It  is  noted  that  Tituba,  an  Indian,  had  much  to 
do  with  the  outbreak  in  Salem  village. 

Sir  William  Phips,  an  illiterate  but  not  incapable  man,  had  been  appointed 
Governor  of  Massachusetts  Bay,  under  the  new  charter  of  William  and  Mary. 
The  charter  conferred  the  power  of  civil  government,  and  separated  the  legis 
lative  from  the  judicial  authority.  Sir  William  constituted  a  commission  of 
seven  to  try  the  witchcraft  cases  at  Salern.  As  he  had  no  power  to  create 
such  a  court  under  the  charter,  one  of  the  saddest  reflections  that  arise  from 
these  bloody  proceedings  is  that  twenty  persons  suffered  death  for  an  imagi 
nary  crime,  inflicted  by  an  illegal  tribunal.  The  province  law  of  1692  de 
creed  death  for  "  enchantment,  sorcery,  charm,  or  conjuration,  or  invocation,  or 
to  feed  any  wicked  spirit." 

The  first  authenticated  case  of  witchcraft  in  New  England,  and  also  the 
first  execution,  took  place  at  Boston,  as  early  as  1648.  The  culprit,  Margaret 
Jones,  of  Charlestown,  was  suspected  of  having  and  using  the  "  malignant 
touch."  She  professed  some  knowledge  of  medicine,  and  probably  availed 
herself  of  the  awe  in  which  she  was  held  by  the  superstitious  to  ply  her  trade. 
Many  other  cases  are  mentioned  in  the  other  colonies,  Connecticut  bearing 
her  full  share,  before  the  climax  of  1692  is  reached.  Then,  as  afterward,  the 
accusations  fell  chiefly  upon  women ;  the  old,  friendless,  or  half-witted  bear 
ing  the  burden  of  every  accident  in  their  neighborhood. 

An  English  writer  gravely  says  in  1690  :  "  Several  old  women  suspected  for 
witches  in  and  about  Lancashire  have  been  often  noted  to  have  beards  of  con 
siderable  growth,  tho'  that's  no  general  rule,  some  of  the  reverend  and  virtu 
ous  being  often  liable  to  the  same."  Everywhere  witchcraft  was  received  as 
a  stubborn  fact.  The  criminal  codes  of  nearly  if  not  quite  all  the  colonies 
recognized  it.  In  Pennsylvania,  if  tradition  may  be  believed,  the  fact  was 
met  by  no  less  stubborn  common  sense.  It  is  said,  when  Philadelphia  was 
three  years  old,  a  woman  was  brought  before  Governor  Penn,  charged  with 
witchcraft  and  riding  through  the  air  on  a  broomstick.  Although  the  woman 
confessed  her  guilt,  she  was  dismissed  by  the  Quaker  magistrate  with  the  as 
surance  that,  as  there  was  no  law  against  it,  she  might  ride  a  broomstick  as 
often  as  she  pleased. 

Could  a  full  and  candid  confession  be  obtained  of  the  present  generation 


SALEM  VILLAGE,  AND  '02. 


213 


there  would  appear  more  superstition  than  we  wot  of,  such  as  would  show  us 
legitimate  descendants  of  credulous  colonists.  It  is  not  long  since  a  staid  old 
town  in  Massachusetts  was  in  consternation  at  the  report  of  a  ghost  in  a 
school-room.  Signs  and  portents  have  been  handed  down  and  are  religiously 
believed  in  by  other  than  the  ignorant  and  credulous,  as  has  been  already 
stated  in  a  former  chapter.  A  very  small  proportion  of  the  skeptical  could 
be  induced  to  enter  a  church-yard  at  night.  There  is  some  subtle  principle 
of  our  nature  that  gives  ready  adhesion  to  the  mystical  or  the  marvelous ; 
arid  it  is  believed 
they  were  not  dif 
ferently  constitu 
ted  in  1692. 

Leaving  the 
Witch  Ground, 
the  visitor,  in  re 
tracing  his  steps, 
will  pass  near  the 
old  Nurse  House, 
a  memorial  of  one 
of  the  most  dam 
ning  of  the  inno 
cent  sacrifices  to 
superstition.  It  REBECCA  NURSE'S  HOUSE. 

is  not  easy  to  sit  down  and  write  of  it  with  the  indifference  of  the  profession 
al  historian. 

Rebecca  Nurse,  aged  and  infirm,  universally  beloved  by  her  neighbors, 
was  accused.  The  jury,  moved  by  her  innocence,  having  brought  in  a  verdict 
of  "not  guilty,"  the  court  sent  them  out  again  with  instructions  to  find  her 
guilty.  She  was  executed.  The  tradition  is  that  her  sons  disinterred  her  body 
by  stealth  from  the  foot  of  the  gallows,  where  it  had  been  thrown,  and  brought 
it  to  the  old  homestead,  laying  it  reverently  and  with  many  tears  in  the  little 
burying-ground  which  the  family  always  kept,  and  which  is  still  seen  near  by. 

But  briefly  to  our  history.  We  there  discover  that  twenty  persons  lost 
their  lives  through  the  denunciation  of  eight  simple  country  girls,  the  young 
est  being  eleven,  and  the  oldest  not  more  than  twenty  years  of  age.1  These 
maidens  met  at  the  house  of  Samuel  Parris,  the  then  minister  of  the  village, 
and  on  the  spot  where  the  earth  is  now  trying  to  heal  the  scar  left  by  the 
old  cellar.  They  formed  what  was  then  and  is  still  known  as  a  "circle"  in 
New  England,  devoted  in  these  more  modern  days  to  clothing  the  heathen 
and  bewitching  the  youth  who  enter  their  influence. 

1  Abigail  Williiims,  eleven ;  Mary  Wnlctit,  seventeen ;  Ann  Putnam,  twelve ;  Mercy  Lewis, 
seventeen;  Mary  Warren,  twenty  ;  Elizabeth  Booth,  eighteen  ;  Sarah  Churchill,  twenty ;  Susannah 
Sheldon,  age  not  known. 


214  THE  NEW  ENGLAND  COAST. 

The  most  plausible,  and  therefore  the  commonly  received  opinion  is,  that 
these  girls,  having  at  first  practiced  some  of  the  well-known  methods  of  per 
forming  magic,  were  led  into  a  series  of  false  accusations  which,  from  being 
conceived  in  a  spirit  of  mischief,  grew  into  crimes  of  the  first  magnitude  as 
they  found  themselves  carried  away  by  a  frenzy  they  had  not  moral  courage 
to  stay.  Another  presumption  supposes  the  girls  believers  in  their  own  pow 
ers.  This  view  is  sustained  by  the  universal  belief  in  witchcraft,  the  ready 
adhesion  given  to  their  charges,  the  support  they  received  from  the  judges, 
and  the  terrible  power  with  which  they  found  themselves  possessed.  Anoth 
er  solution  is  found  in  the  occult  influences  of  second-sight  so  widely  credited 
in  Scotland  in  years  by-gone,  the  psychology  and  clairvoyance  of  the  present 
day.  Dr.  Samuel  Johnson  said  he  would  rather  believe  in  second-sight  than 

in  the  poetry  of 
Ossian.  If  the 
soundest  thinkers 
of  the  nineteenth 
century  are  stag 
gered  to  account 
for  the  phenomena 
of  spirit-rappings, 
it  is  wise  to  defer 
a  hasty  condem 
nation  of  the  "pos 
sessed  damosels  " 
of  Salem  village. 

Instead  of  ply 
ing  its  needles, the 

circle  was  engaged  in  attempts  to  discover  the  future.      Rev.  John  Hale,  in 
his  "Modest  Inquiry  into  the  Nature  of  Witchcraft,"  has  this  to  say: 

"  I  fear  some  young  persons,  through  a  vain  curiosity  to  know  their  fu 
ture  condition,  have  tampered  with  devil's  tools,  so  far  that  thereby  one  door 
was  opened  to  Satan  to  play  those  pranks — Anno  1692.  I  knew  one  of  the 
Afflicted  persons,  who  (as  I  was  credibly  informed),  did  try  with  an  egg  and 
a  glass  to  find  her  future  husband's  calling ;  till  there  came  up  a  coffin,  that 
is,  a  spectre  in  likeness  of  a  coffin.  And  she  was  afterward  followed  with 
diabolical  molestation  to  her  death;  and  so  dyed  a  single  person.  A  just 
warning  to  others,  to  take  heed  of  handling  the  devil's  weapons  lest  they  get 
n  wound  thereby."  This  John  Hale,  teacher  of  the  people,  was  at  first  a 
zealous  believer.  Perhaps  the  denunciation  of  his  own  wife  had  something 
to  do  with  his  backsliding  into  common  sense. 

The  accusing  girls  were  believed  infallible  witch-finders.  Their  services 
were  consequently  in  demand  as  their  fame  spread  abroad.  Some  of  them 
were  taken  to  Andover,  leaving  distrust,  dismay,  and  death  in  the  quiet  old 


PKOCTER  HOUSE. 


SALEM  VILLAGE,  AND  '92.  215 

West  Parish.     "In  a  short  time,"  says  the  annalist,  "it  was  commonly  re 
ported  forty  men  of  Andover  could  raise  the  devil  as  well  as  any  astrologer." 

A  "  Boston  Man  "  having  taken  his  sick  child  to  Salem  in  order  to  consult 
the  afflicted  ones,  obtained  the  names  of  two  of  his  own  towns-people  as  the 
authors  of  its  distemper;  but  the  Boston  justices  refused  warrants  to  appre 
hend  them,  and  Increase  Mather  asked  the  father  if  there  was  not  a  God  in 
Boston  that  he  must  go  to  the  devil  in  Salem.  These  two  persons  are  said 
to  have  been  Mrs.  Thatcher,  mother-in-law  of  Curwin,  one  of  the  judges,1  and 
the  wife  of  Sir  William  Phips. 

As  soon  as  the  prosecutions  stopped,  it  was  remarked  that  the  apparitions 
ceased.  Once  or  twice  the  accuser  recoiled  before  a  sharp  and  swift  reproof, 
as  at  Lieutenant  Ingersoll's,  when  one  of  them  cried  out,  "There's  Goody 
Procter !"  Raymond  and  Goody  Ingersoll  told  her  flatly  she  lied ;  there  was 
nothing.  The  girl  was  cowed,  and  "  said  she  did  it  for  sport." 

Even  the  witchcraft  horrors  have  a  humorous  side — grimly  humorous,  it 
is  true,  like  the  jokes  cracked  in  a  dissecting-room.  The  thought  of  pots  and 
kettles  jumping  on  the  crane,  of  anchors  leaping  overboard  of  themselves, 
and  of  hay-cocks  found  hanging  to  trees  is  rather  mirth-provoking.  Mirrors 
were  daily  consulted  by  maids  and  widows  looking  for  a  husband.  A  mat 
ter  of  life  and  death  could  not  prevent  George  Jacobs,  the  old  grandfather, 
from  laughing  heartily  at  the  spasmodic  antics  of  Abigail  Williams. 

It  seems  a  pity  that  New  England  in  her  greatest  need  should  have  found 
no  champion,  like  St.  Dunstan,  to  argue  with  and  finally  compel  the  devil  to 
own  himself  confuted,  as,  according  to  vulgar  belief,  he  did,  by  taking  the 
fiend  by  the  nose  with  a  pair  of  red-hot  tongs ;  or  as  Ignatius  Loyola,  who, 
when  disturbed  at  his  devotions  by  the  devil,  seized  his  cudgel  and  drubbed 
him  away.2  Montmorency,  a  peer  and  marshal  of  France,  son  of  the  famous 
Bouteville,  whom  Richelieu  had  caused  to  be  decapitated  for  fighting  a  duel 
at  midday  in  the  Place  Royal,  was  weak  enough  to  visit  La  Voisin,  the  re 
nowned  conjuror  and  fabricator  of  poisons  in  the  reign  of  Louis  XIV.  La 
Yoisin  had  promised  to  show  him  the  devil,  and  the  duke  was  curious. 
When  the  marechal  whipped  out  his  rapier  and  thrust  vigorously  at  the  spec 
tre,  it  fell  on  its  knees,  and  begged  its  life.  The  devil  proved  to  be  a  con 
federate  of  La  Voisin.  Archibald,  duke  of  Argyle,  was  haunted  by  blue 
phantoms — the  origin  of  our  epithet  for  melancholy,  "blue  devils." 

In  the  village  tavern  there  was  a  battle  with  spectres  that  Abigail  Wil 
liams  and  Mary  Walcut  declared  were  present.  Benjamin  Hutchinson  and 
Eleazer  Williams  pulled  out  their  swords  and  cut  and  stabbed  the  air  until, 
as  the  two  girls  averred,  the  floor  was  deep  in  ghostly  blood  ! 

A  ride  through  the  woods  then  was  little  coveted  by  the  stoutest  hearts. 
A  spark  of  fear  is  soon  blown  into  uncontrollable  panic.  Bushes  grew  spec- 

1  Account  of  Thomas  Brattle.  2  See  his  life,  page  80. 


216  THE  NEW  ENGLAND  COAST. 

tres  and  trees  outstretched  goblin  arms.  Elizabeth  Hubbard  was  riding 
home  from  meeting  on  the  crupper,  behind  old  Clement  Coldum.  The  rus 
tling  leaves  were  witches'  \yhisperings,  the  white  birches  seemed  ghosts  in 
their  winding-sheets.  The  woman,  faint-hearted  and  overmastered  by  a 
nameless  dread,  cried  out  to  the  goodman  to  ride  for  life — the  woods  were  full 
of  devils.  Though  he  could  see  none,  the  valiant  rider  spurred  his  horse  like 
mad,  and  rode  as  Tarn  O'Shanter  rode  his  fearful  race  when  pursued  by  the 
witches  of  Kirk  Alloway. 

The  trysting-place  of  the  witches  was  in  Parris's  pasture.  It  was  here 
Abigail  Hobbs,  who  had  sold  herself  to  the  "  Old  Boy,"  attending,  saw  the  sac 
rament  of  the  "  red  bread  and  the  red  wine"  administered  to  the  devil's  elect. 
Poor  George  Burroughs,  whom  we  met  for  a  moment  in  our  walk  through 
Wells,  was  denounced  for  summoning  with  a  trumpet  the  attending  witches. 
Obedient  to  the  sound,  from  far  and  near,  the  withered  beldams,  toothless 
hags  in  short  petticoats,  white  linen  hoods,  arid  conical  high  crowned  hats, 
come  flocking  on  flying  broomsticks.  Satan  is  there  in  person,  not  playing 
the  bagpipe,  as  in  Tarn  O'Shanter's  fearful  conclave,  but  with  the  convention 
al  book  written  in  letters  of  blood. 

Certes,  these  were  but  rude  ghosts.  Nowadays  the  devil  is  raised  as 
easily,  but  conducts  himself  with  greater  propriety,  as  becomes  the  devil  of 
the  nineteenth  century.  The  damp  grass  of  the  church-yard  and  the  witches' 
den  are  bugbears  no  longer.  We  sit  in  a  comfortable  apartment  around  a 
mahogany  table.  Our  ghost  no  more  appears  in  mouldy  shroud,  but,  like  a 
well-bred  spectre,  knocks  for  admittance.  Soon  his  card  will  be  handed  in 
on  a  salver,  and  we  may  perhaps  in  time  expect  daily  weather  reports  from 
the  nether  world. 

Before  leaving  the  village,  I  turned  into  one  of  those  old  abandoned  roads 
in  which  I  like  so  well  to  walk.  Left  on  one  side  by  a  shorter  cut,  saving 
some  rods  to  this  hurrying  age,  the  deserted  by-way  conducts  you  into  soli 
tudes  proper  for  communion  with  the  past.  Grass  has  sprung  up  so  thickly 
as  almost  to  conceal  traces  of  the  once  well-worn  ruts,  now  only  two  indis 
tinct  lines  of  lighter  green.  Young  pines,  a  foot  high,  are  rooted  in  the  cart- 
way;  stone  walls,  moss-grown  and  tumbling  down.  Here  and  there  are  the 
ghastly  remains  of  some  old  orchard,  the  ground  strewed  with  withered 
branches.  A  half-obliterated  cellar  denotes  a  former  habitation  ;  even  the 
land  betrays  evidences  of  having  been  turned  by  the  plows  of  two  centuries 
ago.  Who  have  passed  this  way  ?  Perhaps  the  laying-out  of  this  very  road 
begot  disputes  transmitted  from  father  to  son. 

A  mile  beyond  the  Witch  Neighborhood  the  Andover  road  crosses  the 
Newburyport  turnpike.  At  the  junction  of  the  two  roads  stands  the  old 
farm-house  in  which  Israel  Putnam,  the  "Old  Put"  of  the  Revolutionary 
army,  was  born. 

The  house,  or  rather  houses,  for  two  structures  compose  it,  is  still  occu- 


SALEM   VILLAGE,  AND  '92. 


217 


pied  by  Putnams.  The  newer  building,  already  old  by  comparison  with  some 
of  its  neighbors,  was  built  in  1744;  the  original  in  1650,  or  thereabouts,  ac 
cording  to  family  tradition.  One  object,  to  which  the  attention  of  every  vis 
itor  is  directed,  is  the  old  pollard  of  enormous  girth  standing  near  the  house. 
House  and  tree  seem  types  of  the  sturdy,  indomitable  old  man,  who  at  nearly 
three-score  was  full  of  the  rage  of  battle. 

By  the  courtesy  of  the  family,  ever  ready  to  indulge  a  proper  curiosity, 
I  looked  over  the  old  house  from  garret  to  cellar.  The  little  room  in  which 
the  general  was  born  remains  just  as  when  its  rough-hewn  posts  and  thick 
beams  were  revealed  to  his  astonished  gaze.  There  are  few  relics  of  the  gen 
eral  remaining. 


BIRTHPLACE   OF  PUTNAM. 

While  in  the  Wadsworth  Museum  at  Hartford,  I  lately  saw  the  damaged 
sign  displayed  by  Putnam  when  he  kept  an  inn  at  Brooklyn,  Connecticut, 
about  1768.  Another  famous  soldier,  Murat,  was  the  son  of  an  aubergiste,  and 
Napoleon  was  not  too  willing  on  this  account  to  give  him  the  hand  of  his 
sister. 

The  Putnams  settled  early  in  Salem.  John,  the  first  emigrant,  came  from 
Buckinghamshire,  in  1634,  with  three  sons,  Thomas,  Nathaniel,  and  John. 
Some  of  the  name  exercised  a  fatal  influence  during  the  reign  of  witchcraft. 
Israel  was  already  an  old  man  when  he  left  his  plow  in  the  furrow  to  gallop 
to  Cambridge,  having  been  born  in  1718.  At  twenty-one  he  removed  to 


218 


THE  NEW  ENGLAND  COAST. 


PUTNAM   IN  BRITISH   UNIFORM. 


Pomfret,  Connecticut.  Putnam 
I  was  prompt,  resolute,  and  inca 
pable  of  fear — full  of  fight,  and 
always  ready.  Washington, who 
did  not  judge  badly,  thought 
him  the  only  fit  man  to  make  an 
assault  on  Boston.  Though  un 
educated,  Putnam  wrote  pith 
ily,  as  to  Governor  Tryon : 

"  SIR, — Nathan  Palmer, a  lieu 
tenant  in  your  king's  service, 
was  taken  in  my  camp  as  a  spy ; 
he  was  condemned  as  a  spy ;  and 
he  shall  be  hanged  as  a  spy. 

"  P.  S.  —  Afternoon.  He  is 
hanged." 

Danvers,  in  whose  territory 
wre  have  been  rambling,  is  an 
aggregate  of  several  widely 
scattered  villages  taken  from 
Salem  in  the  last  century.  Some  of  its  villages  have  grown  into  good-sized, 
prosperous  towns,  and  one  has  taken  the  name  of  her  eminent  banker-philan 
thropist,  George  Peabody.  When  at  Salem,  the  visitor  may  easily  reach 
Peabody,  Danvers,  and  the  Witch  Neighborhood  by  rail,  having  in  the  latter 
instance  a  walk  of  a  mile  before  him  on  leaving  the  little  station  near  the 
Putnam  House.  In  a  circuit  of  several  miles,  embracing  what  is  to  be  seen 
of  interest  on 
this  side,  it  is, 
perhaps,  better 
to  leave  Salem 
by  the  old  Bos 
ton  road  and  re 
turn  to  it  by  the 
Andover  high 
way.  Following 
this  route,  we 
successively  pass 
by  Governor  En- 
dicott's  farm,  on 
which  is  still  seen 
the  aged  pear-  ENDICOTT  PEAR-TREE. 


SALEM  VILLAGE,  AND  '92. 


219 


tree,  sole  relic  of  the  ancient  orchard,1  the  house  which  became  the  head 
quarters  in  1774  of  General  Gage,  and  the  Witch  Neighborhood.  But  before 
hurrying  away  from  Peabody,  it  will  be  well  to  read  the  inscription  on  the 
monument  which  one  sees  in  the  main  street,2  examine  the  memorials  of  royal 
munificence  in  the  library  of  the  Institute,3  and,  if  the  stranger  be  of  my 
mind,  to  halt  for  a  moment  before  the  humble  dwelling  in  which  Bowditch 
was  born.  As  there  is  no  place  in  New  England  which  so  highly  prizes  its 
antique  memorials  and  traditions  as  Salem,  the  first  person  you  meet  will  be 
able  to  direct  you  to  the  one  or  relate  to  you  the  other. 

1  Endicott  had  a  grant  of  three  hundred  acres  on  the  tongue  of  land  between  Cow-house  and 
Duck  rivers.     The  site  does  justice  to  his  discernment. 

2  Raised  in  1837  to  the  memory  of  soldiers  of  Danvers  killed  in  the  battle  of  Lexington. 

3  The  Queen's  portrait  by  Tilt,  the  gold  box  and  medal  presented  by  the  city  of  London  and  by 
Congress  to  Mr.  Peabody. 


PUTNAM'S  TAVERN  SIGN. 


WASHINGTON  STREET,  SALEM. 


CHAPTER  XV. 

A    WALK    TO    WITCH    HILL. 

"Do  not  the  hist'ries  of  all  ages 
Relate  miraculous  presages, 
Of  strange  turns  in  the  world's  affairs, 
Foreseen  by  astrologers,  soothsayers, 
Chaldeans,  learned  genethliacs, 
And  some  that  have  writ  almanacs?" 

Hudibras. 

TN  1692  Salem  may  have  contained  four  hundred  houses.  A  few  specimens 
-*-  of  this  time  now  remain  in  odd  corners — Rip  Van  Winkles  or  Wander 
ing  Jews  of  old  houses,  that  have  outlived  their  day  of  usefulness,  and  would 
now  be  at  rest.  Objects  of  scorn  to  the  present  generation,  they  have  silent 
ly  endured  the  contemptuous  flings  of  the  passer-by,  as  well,  perchance,  as  the 
frowns  and  haughty  stare  of  rows  of  plate-glass  windows  along  the  street. 
As  well  put  new  wine  in  old  bottles,  as  an  old  house  in  a  new  dress;  it  is 
always  an  old  house,  despite  the  thin  veneer  of  miscalled  improvements.  The 
architect  can  do  nothing  with  it  to  the  purpose ;  the  carpenter  can  make 
nothing  of  it.  There  they  are,  with  occupants  equally  old-fashioned — of,  yet 
not  belonging  to  the  present.  Some  have  stood  so  long  in  particular  neigh- 


A  WALK  TO  WITCH  HILL. 


221 


BIKTHPLACE  OF  HAWTHOKNE. 


borhoods,  have 
outlived  so  many 
modern  struc 
tures,  as  to  be 
come  points  of 
direction,  like 
London  Stone 
or  Charing-cross. 
The  stranger's 
puzzled  question 
ing  is  often  met 
with,"  You  know 
that  old  house  in 
such  a  street  ?" 
And  so  the  old 
house  helps  us  to  find  our  way  not  alone  to  the  past,  but  in  the  present. 

tTndoubted  among  such  specimens  as  will  be  met  with  in  the  neighborhood 
of  the  wharves,  or  between  Essex  Street  and  the  water-side,  is  the  old  gam- 
brel-roofed,  portly-chimneyed  house  in  which  our  "Wizard  of  the  North'* 
first  drew  breath.  It  stands  in  Union  Street,  at  the  left  as  you  pass  down. 
Many  pilgrims  loiter  and  ponder  there  over  these  wrords : 

"  SALEM,  October  4th,  Union  Street  [Family  Mansion]. 

"Here  I  sit  in  my  old  accustomed  chamber,  where  I  used  to  sit  in  days 
gone  by.  Here  I  have  written  many  tales — many  that  have  been  burned  to 
ashes,  many  that  doubtless  deserved  the  same  fate.  This  claims  to  be  called 
a  haunted  chamber,  for  thousands  upon  thousands  of  visions  have  appeared  to 

If  ever 

I  should  have  a 
biographer,  he 
ought  to  make 
great  mention  of 
this  chamber  in 
rny  memoirs,  be 
cause  so  much  of 
my  lonely  youth 
was  wasted  here, 
and  here  my 
mind  and  charac 
ter  were  formed ; 
and  here  I  have 
been  glad  and 
SHATTUCK  HOUSE.  hopeful,  and  here 


me  in  it ;  and  some  few  of  them  have  become  visible  to  the  world. 


222 


THE  NEW  ENGLAND  COAST. 


ROOM   IN   WHICH  HAWTHORNE   WAS   BORN. 


I  have  been  de 
spondent.  And 
here  I  sat  a  long, 
long  time,  wait 
ing  patiently  for 
the  world  to  know 


me,  and  some 
times  wondering 
why  it  did  not 
know  me  soon 
er,  or  whether  it 
would  ever  know 
me  at  all — at 
least,  till  I  were 
in  my  grave." 

It  is  not  my  purpose  to  attempt  a  description  of  Salem,  or  of  what  is  to 
be  seen  there.  Her  merchants  are  princes.  No  doubt  they  were  in  Josselyn's 
mind  when  he  said  some  of  the  New  Englanders  were  "damnable  rich." 
French  writers  of  that  day  speak  of  her  "  bourgeois  enticement  riches."  Those 
substantial  mansions  of  red  brick,  tree- shaded  and  ivy-trellised,  represent 
what  Carlyle  named  the  "noblesse  of  commerce,"  with  money  in  its  pocket. 

Writing  in  1685  upon  the  English  invasions  of  Acadia,  Sieur  Bergier  thus 
characterizes  Salem  and  Boston  : 

"  The  English  who  inhabit  these  two  straggling  boroughs  (bonrgades)  are 
for  the  greater  part  fugitives  out  of  England,  guilty  of  the  death  of  the*  late 
king  (Charles  Stuart),  and  accused  of  conspiring  against  the  reigning  sover 
eign.  The  rest  are  corsairs  and  sea-robbers,  who  have  united  themselves 
with  the  former  in  a  sort  of  independent  republic."  This  is  rather  earlier 
than  the  date  usually  fixed  for  the  planting  of  democracy  in  America,  but  per 
haps  none  too  early.  Endicott  had  then  cut  the  cross  from  the  standard  of 
England  with  his  poniard ;  and  Charles  II.  had  been  humbled  in  the  persons 
of  his  commissioners. 

Let  us  walk  on  through  Essex  Street,  unheeding  the  throng,  unmindful  of 
the  statelier  buildings,  until  we  approach  an  ancient  landmark  at  the  corner 
of  North  Street.  Its  claims  on  our  attention  are  twofold.  It  is  said  to  have 
been  the  dwelling  of  Roger  Williams,  for  whom  Southey,  when  reminded 
that  Wales  had  been  more  famous  for  mutton  than  great  men,  avowed  he 
had  a  sincere  respect,  yet  it  is  even  more  celebrated  as  the  scene  of  examina 
tions  durinsc  the  Reign  of  Terror  in  1692. 1 


1  Considerable  changes  were  necessary  so  long  ago  as  1674-75,  when  it  became  the  property 
of  Jonathan  Corwin,  of  witchcraft  notoriety.  In  1745,  and  again  about  1772,  it  underwent  other 
repairs,  leaving  it  as  now  seen. 


A  WALK  TO  WITCH   HILL. 


223 


In  appearance  the  original  house  might  have  been  transplanted  out  of  old 
London.  Its  peaked  gables,  with  pine-apples  carved  in  wood  surmounting, 
its  latticed  windows,  and  colossal  chimney,  put  it  unmistakably  in  the  age  of 
ruffs,  Spanish  cloaks,  and  long  rapiers.  It  has  long  been  divested  of  its  an 
tique  English  character,  now  appearing  no  more  than  a  reminiscence  of  its 
former  self.  However,  from  a  recessed  area  at  the  back  its  narrow  casements 
and  excrescent  stairways  are  yet  to  be  seen.  A  massive  frame,  filled  between 
with  brick,  plastered  with  clay,  with  the  help  of  its  tower-like  chimney,  has 
stood  immovable  against  the  assaults  of  time.  Such  houses,  and  their  num- 


THE  OLD  WITCH  HOUSE. 


ber  is  not  large,  represent  the  original  forest  that  stood  on  the  site  of  ancient 
Salem. 

Jonathan  Corwin,  or  Curwin,  made  a  councilor  under  the  new  charter 
granted  by  King  William,  was  one  of  the  judges  before  whom  the  preliminary 
examinations  were  held,  both  here  and  at  the  Village.  Governor  Corwin,  of 
Ohio,  is  accounted  a  descendant,  as  was  the  author  of  "  The  Scarlet  Letter" 
of  another  witch-judge,  John  Hathorne.  The  reader  may  imagine  the  nov 
elist  on  his  knees  before  the  grave-stone  of  his  ancestor,  striving  to  scrape 
the  moss  from  its  Iwilf- obliterated  characters.1  Other  examinations  took 
place  in  Thomas  Beadle's  tavern. 


A  scene  from  life  in  the  old  Copp's  Hill  burial-ground  at  Boston. 


204 


THE  NEW  ENGLAND   COAST. 


A- 


(*     - 


«a^ 


^ 


FRAGMENT   OP   EXAMINATION   OF   REBECCA  NURSE, 

lu  Handwriting  of  Rev.  Samuel  Parris.1 

Knowing  the  world  believed  in  witchcraft,  onr  horror  at  the  atrocities  of 
'92  is  moderated  by  the  probability  that  nothing  less  than  the  shedding  of  in 
nocent  blood  could  have  annihilated  the  delusion.  The  king  believed  in  it, 


1  In  the  library  of  Harvard  College  is  a  book  having  the  name  of  Parris  on  the  fly-leaf. 


A   WALK   TO   WITCH   HILL. 


225 


THOMAS   BEADLE  S   TAVERN 


the  governor  and 
judges  believed 
•in  it,  and  the 
most  sensible  and 
learned  gave  am 
ple  credence  to 
it.  Queen  Anne 
wrote  a  letter  to 
Phips  that  shows 
she  admitted  it 
as  a  thing  am- 
questioned.1  The 
clergy,  with  sin 
gular  unanimity, 
recognized  it. 

The  revulsion  that  followed  equaled  the  precipitation  that  had  marked  the 
proceedings.  One  of  the  judges  made  public  confession  of  his  error.2  Offi 
cers  of  the  court  were  persecuted  until  the  day  of  their  death. 

There  is  one  hard,  inflexible  character,  that  was  never  known  to  have  re 
lented.  William  Stoughton,  lieutenant-governor,  presided  at  these  trials.  It 
is  related  that  once,  on  hearing  of  a  reprieve  granted  some  of  the  condemned, 
he  left  the  bench,  exclaiming,  "  We  were  in  a  way  to  have  cleared  the  land 
of  these.  Who  is  it  obstructs  the  course  of  justice  I  know  not.  The  Lord  be 
merciful  to  the  country." 

This  pudding-faced,  sanctimonious,  yet  merciless  judge  had  listened  to  the 
heart-broken  appeals  of  the  victims,  raising  their  manacled  hands  to  heaven 
for  that  justice  denied  them  upon  earth.  "I  have  got  nobody  to  look  to  but 
God."  "There  is  another  judgment,  dear  child."  "The  Lord  will  not  suffer 
it."  Others  as  passionately  reproached  their  accusers,  but  all  were  confound 
ed,  because  all  were  believers  in  the  fact  of  witchcraft.3 

Whether  Witch  Hill  be  the  first  or  last  place  visited,  it  is  there  Salem 
witchcraft  culminates.  There  is  seen,  in  approaching  by  the  railway  from 
Boston,  a  bleak  and  rocky  eminence  bestrown  with  a  little  soil.  Houses  of 
the  poorer  sort  straggle  up  its  eastern  acclivity,  while  the  south  and  west  faces 
remain  as  formed  by  nature,  abrupt  and  precipitous.  The  hill  is  one  of  a  range 
stretching  away  northward  in  a  broken  line  toward  the  Merrimac.  On  the 
summit  is  a  tolerably  level  area  of  several  acres.  Not  a  tree  was  growing 
on  it  when  I  was  there.  The  bleak  winds  sweep  over  it  without  hinderance. 

1  She  approved  Governor  Phips's  conduct,  but  advised  the  utmost  moderation  and  circumspec 
tion  in  all  proceedings  for  witchcraft.  —  "Manuscript  Files." 

2  Samuel  Sewall,  afterward  chief-justice  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  province. 

3  Some  of  the  pins  said  to  have  been  thrust  by  witches  into  the  bodies  of  their  victims  are  still 
preserved  in  Salem. 

15 


226  THE  NEW  ENGLAND  COAST. 

On  the  19th  of  July,  1692,  an  unusual  stir  might  have  been  observed  in 
Salem.  We  may  suppose  the  town  excited  beyond  any  thing  that  had  been 
known  in  its  history.  The  condemned  witches,  Sarah  Good,  Sarah  Wildes, 
Elizabeth  Howe,  Susannah  Martin,  and  Rebecca  Nurse,  are  to  be  hanged  on 
Gallows  Hill. 

The  narrow  lane  in  which  the  common  jail  is  situated  is  thronged  with 
knots  of  men  arid  women,  wearing  gloomy,  awe-struck  faces,  conversing  in 
under-tones.  Before  the  jail  door  are  musketeers  of  the  train-band,  armed 
and  watchful.  The  crowd  gives  way  on  the  approach  of  a  cart  that  stops  in 
front  of  the  prison  door,  which  is  now  wide  opened.  On  one  side  stands  the 
jailer,  with  ponderous  keys  hanging  at  his  girdle ;  on  the  other  is  the  sheriff, 
grasping  his  staff  of  office.  The  guard  clears  a  passage,  and  then  the  sheriff's 
voice  is  heard  calling  upon  the  condemned  to  come  forth. 

There  are  five  of  them,  all  women.  They  look  pale,  haggard,  despairing. 
At  sight  of  them  a  murmur  ripples  through  the  crowd,  succeeded  by  solemn 
stillness.  As  they  mount  the  cart  with  weak  and  tottering  steps — for  some 
are  old  and  feeble  and  gray-haired — audible  sobs  are  heard  among  the  by 
standers.  Men's  lips  are  compressed  and  teeth  clenched  as  they  look  on  with 
white  faces.  All  is  ready.  The  guard  surrounds  the  cart,  as  if  a  rescue  were 
feared.  It  takes  a  score  of  strong  men,  armed  to  the  teeth,  to  conduct  five 
helpless  women  to  death  ! 

I  suppose  there  wrere  outcries,  hootings,  and  imprecations,  as  is  the  rabble's 
wont.  If  so,  I  believe  they  were  borne  with  the  resignation  and  heroism  that 
make  woman  the  superior  of  man  in  supreme  moments.  At  last  the  caval 
cade  is  grouped  around  the  place  of  execution.  The  gallows  and  the  fatal 
ladder  are  there,  grotesque  yet  horrible.  To  each  of  those  five  women  they 
meant  martyrdom,  and  nothing  less. 

The  provost-marshal  commands  silence  while  he  reads  the  warrant.  This 
formality  ended,  he  replaces  it  in  his  belt.  Expectation  is  intense  as  the  con 
demned  are  seen  to  take  leave  of  each  other,  like  people  who  have  done  with 
this  world.  Then  a  shiver,  like  an  electric  spark,  runs  through  the  multi 
tude  as  the  hangman  seizes  them,  pinions  and  blindfolds  them,  and,  in  the 
name  of  King  William  and  Queen  Mary,  hangs  them  by  the  neck  until  dead. 

Being  leagued  with  Satan,  they  were  denied  the  consolations  of  religion 
vouchsafed  to  pirates,  murderers,  and  like  malefactors.  Poor  old  Rebecca 
Nurse  had  been  led,  heavily  ironed,  up  the  broad  aisle  of  Salem  Church  to 
be  thrust  out  of  its  communion.  At  the  scaffold  Rev.  Mr.  Noyes,  of  Salem, 
insulted  the  last  moments  of  Sarah  Good.  "You  are  a  witch,  and  you  know 
it,"  said  this  servant  of  Christ.  She  turned  upon  him  fiercely,  "You  lie,  and 
if  you  take  away  my  life  God  will  give  you  blood  to  drink."1  That  few  of 

1  This  incident  nppears  in  Hawthorne's  "Seven  Gables."  The  tradition  is  that  Noyes  was 
choked  with  blood — dying  by  a  hemorrhage. 


A  WALK  TO  WITCH   HILL. 


227 


INTERIOR  OF  FIRST   CHURCH.1 

the  martyrs  chose  to  buy  their  lives  with  a  lie  has  ennobled  their  memories 
for  all  time.  It  is  written  :  "If  I  would  but  go  to  hell  for  an  eternal  moment 
or  so,  I  might  be  knighted." 

Other  executions  took  place  in  August  and  September,  swelling  the  num 
ber  of  victims  hanged  to  nineteen.  Giles  Corey  was,  by  the  old  English  law, 
pressed  to  death  for  standing  mute  when  told  to  plead. 

John  Adams  mentions  a  visit  to  this  hill  in  1766,  then  called  Witchcraft 
Hill.  Somebody,  he  says,  within  a  few  years  had  planted  a  number  of  locust- 
trees  over  the  graves.  In  1793  Dr.  Morse  notes  that  the  graves  might  still 
be  traced.  I  felt  no  regret  at  their  total  disappearance.  Would  that  the 
bloody  chapter  might  as  easily  disappear  from  history ! 

1  The  frame  of  the  old  Fir.st  Church  of  Salem  has  been  preserved.     It  is  now  standing  in  the 
rear  of  Plummer  Hall,  a  depository  of  olden  relics. 


IRESON'S  HOUSE,  OAKUM  BAY,  MARBLEHEAD. 


CHAPTER  XVI. 

MARBLEHEAD. 

"Launcelot.  Turn  up  on  your  right  hand  at  the  next  turning,  but  at  the  next  turning  of  all 
on  your  left;  marry,  at  the  very  next  turning,  turn  of  no  hand,  but  turn  down  indirectly  to  the 
Jew's  house."  —  Merchant  of  Venice. 

MARBLEHEAD  is  a  backbone  of  granite,  a  vertebra  of  syenite  and  por 
phyry  thrust  out  into  Massachusetts  Bay  in  the  direction  of  Cape  Ann, 
and  hedged  about  with  rocky  islets.  It  is  somewhat  sheltered  from  the 
weight  of  north-east  storms  by  the  sweep  of  the  cape,  which  launches  itself 
right  out  to  sea,  and  gallantly  receives  the  first  buffetings  of  the  Atlantic. 
The  promontory  of  Marblehead  may  once  have  been  a  prolongation  of  Cape 
Ann,  the  whole  coast  hereabouts  looking  as  if  the  ocean  had  licked  out  the 
softer  parts,  leaving  nothing  that  was  digestible  behind.  This  rock,  on  which 
a  settlement  was  begun  two  hundred  and  forty  odd  years  ago,  performs  its 
part  by  making  Salem  Harbor  on  one  hand,  and  another  for  its  own  shipping 
on  the  east,  where  an  appendage  known  as  Marblehead  Neck1  is  joined  to  it 
by  a  ligature  of  sand  and  shingle.  The  port  is  open  to  the  north-east,  and 
vessels  are  sometimes  blown  from  their  anchorage  upon  the  sand-banks  at 


Captain  Goelet  calls  it  an  island. 


MARBLEHEAD. 


229 


the  head  of  the  harbor, 
though  the  water  is  gen 
erally  deep  and  the  shores 
bold.  At  the  entrance  a 
light-house  is  built  on 
the  extreme  point  of  the 
Neck ;  and  on  a  tongue 
of  land  of  the  opposite 
shore  is  Fort  Sewall — a 
beckoning  linger  and  a 
clenched  list. 

The  harbor,  as  the 
"Gazetteer"  would  say, 
lias  a  general  direction 
from  north  -east  to  south 
west.  It  is  a  mile  and 
a  half  long  by  half  a 
mile  wide,  with  general 
ly  good  holding  ground, 
though  in  places  the  bot 
tom  is  rocky.  La  Touche 
Treville  lost  the  Jlermi- 
0116*8  anchor  here  in  1780, 
when  he  brought  over 
M.  De  Lafayette,  sent  by 
the  king  to  announce  the 
speedy  arrival  of  Ro- 
chambeau'sarmy.1  Prob 
ably  the  good  news  was 
tirst  proclaimed  in  the 
narrow  streets  of  Marble- 
head,  though  it  has  hith 
erto  escaped  a  spirited  lyric  from 
some  disciple  of  Mr.  Browning. 

The  geologist  will  find  Marble- 
head  and  the  adjacent  islands  an  interesting 
ground,  with  some  tolerably  hard  nuts  for  his 
hammer.  The  westerly  shore  of  the  harbor  is 
indented  with  little  coves  niched  in  the  rock, 
and  having  each  a  number,  though  the  Marbleheaders  have  other  names 


CHEAT    HEAD. 


1  Treville  was  the  man  thought  most  worthy  by  Napoleon  to  lead  his  fleet  in  the  long-meditated 
descent  on  England. 


230 


THE  NEW  ENGLAND  COAST. 


for  them.     One  or  two  wharves  are  fitted  in  these  coves,  but  I  did  not  see 
a  vessel  unladino*  or  a  bale  of  merchandise  there.     The  flow  of  the  tide  as  it 

O 

sucked  around  the  wooden  piles  was  the  only  evidence  of  life  about  them. 

The  varying  formations  of  these  shores  go  very  far  to  redeem  the  haggard 
landscape.  Even  the  coves  differ  in  the  materials  with  which  their  walls  are 
built,  feldspar,  porphyry,  and  jasper  variegating  their  rugged  features  with 
pleasing  effect.  The  floor  of  one  of  these  coves  is  littered  with  fractured  rock 
of  a  reddish  brown,  from  which  it  is  locally  known  as  Red  Stone  Cove.  Cap 
tain  Smith  says  this  coast  resembled  Devonshire  with  its  "  tinctured  veines 
of  divers  colors."  The  Rev.  Mr.  Higginson,  of  Salem,  in  1629,  speaks  of  the 
stone  found  here  as  "  marble  stone,  that  we  have  great  rocks  of  it,  and  a  har 
bor  hard  by.  Our 
plantation  is  from 
thence  called  Mar 
ble  Harbor."  His 
marble  was  per 
haps  the  porphy- 
ritic  rock  which 
it  resembles  when 
wetted  by  sea 
moisture. 

The  beach  is 
the  mall  of  Mar- 
blehead.  It  opens 
upon  Nahant  Bay, 
and  is  much  ex 
posed  to  the  force 
of  south-east  gales. 
Over  this  beach  a 
causeway  is  built, 
which  from  time 
to  time  has  re 
quired  extensive 
repairs.  Under 
the  province,  and 
as  late  even  as 
1812,  the  favorite 
method  of  raising 
moneys  for  such 
purposes  was  by 

lottery,  duly  authorized.     In  this  way  a  work  of  public  necessity  was  rele 
gated  to  the  public  cupidity. 

A  run  over  the  Neck  revealed  many  points  of  interest.     There  are  rock 


"THE  CHUKN." 


MARBLEHEAD.  231 

cavities  of  glassy  smoothness,  worn  by  the  action  of  pebbles,  chasms  that  re 
ceive  the  coming  wave  and  derisively  toss  it  high  in  air;  and  there  are  pre 
cipitous  cliffs  which  the  old  stone-cutter  and  lapidary  can  never  blunt,  though 
he  may  fret  and  fume  forever  at  their  base.  Looking  off  to  sea,  the  eye  is 
everywhere  intercepted  by  islands  or  sunken  ledges  belted  with  surf.  They 
have  such  names  as  Satan,  Roaring  Bull,  Great  and  Little  Misery,  Great  and 
Little  Haste,  Cut-throat  Ledge,  the  Brirnbles,  Cat  Island,  and  the  like.  Each 
would  have  a  story,  if  it  were  challenged,  how  it  came  by  its  name.  The 
number  of  these  islands  is  something  surprising.  In  fact  they  appear  like 
a  system,  connecting  the  craggy  promontory  of  Marblehead  with  the  cape 
side.  At  some  time  the  sea  must  have  burst  through  this  rocky  barrier, 
carrying 'all  before  its  resistless  onset.  The  channels  are  intricate  among 
these  islands,  and  must  be  hit  with  the  nicest  precision,  or  a  strong  vessel 
would  go  to  pieces  at  the  first  blow  on  the  sharp  rocks. 

The  Neck  is  the  peculiar  domain  of  a  transient  population  of  care-worn 
fugitives  from  the  city.  The  red-roofed  cottages  were  picturesque  objects 
among  the  rocks,  but  bore  marks  of  the  disorder  in  which  the  winter  had  left 
them.  They  seemed  shivering  up  there  on  the  ledges,  though  it  was  the  sev 
enth  day  of  3Iay,  for  there  had  been  a  light  fall  of  snow,  followed  by  a  search 
ing  north-west  wind.  Not  even  a  curl  of  smoke  issued  from  the  chimneys  to 
take  off  the  prevailing  chilliness.  Down  at  the  harbor  side  there  was  an  old 
farmstead  with  some  noble  trees  I  liked  better.  On  the  beach  I  had  trod  in 
Hawthorne's  "Footprints."  I  might  here  rekindle  Longfellow's  "Fire  of 
Drift-wood :" 

"We  sat  within  the  farm-house  old, 

Whose  windows,  looking  o'er  the  bay, 
Gave  to  the  sea-breeze,  damp  and  cold, 

An  easy  entrance  night  and  day. 

"Not  far  away  we  saw  the  port, 

The  strange  old-fashioned  silent  town, 
The  light-house,  the  dismantled  fort, 

The  wooden  houses  quaint  and  brown." 

The  light-keeper,  whom  I  found  at  home,  indulged  me  in  a  few  moments' 
chat.  He  could  not  account,  he  said,  for  the  extraordinary  predilection  of  the 
Light-house  Board  for  whitewash.  Dwelling,  covered  way,  and  tower  were 
each  and  all  besmeared ;  and  the  keeper  seemed  not  overconfident  that  he 
might  not  soon  receive  an  order  to  put  on  a  coat  of  it  himself.  He  did  not 
object  to  the  summer,  but  in  winter  his  berth  was  not  so  pleasant.  I  already 
felt  convinced  of  this.  To  a  question  he  replied  that  Government  estimated 
his  services  at  five  hundred  dollars  per  annum;  and  he  pointedly  asked  me 
how  he  was  to  support  a  family  on  the  stipend  ?  Yet  he  must  keep  his  light 
trimmed  and  burning ;  for  if  that  goes  out,  so  does  he. 

All  the  light-houses  are  supplied  with  lard-oil,  which  burns  without  in- 


232 


THE  NEW  ENGLAND  COAST. 


crusting  the  wick  of  the  lamp ;  but  the  keeper  objected  that  it  was  always 
chilled  in  cold  weather,  and  that  he  usually  had  to  take  it  into  the  dwelling 
and  heat  it  on  the  stove  before  it  could  be  used.  A  good  deal  of  moisture 
collects  on  the  plate-glass  windows  of  the  lantern  when  the  wind  is  offshore, 
but  if  it  be  off  the  land  the  glass  is  dry.  In  very  cold  weather,  when  it  be 
comes  coated  with  frost,  the  light  is  visible  but  a  short  distance  at  sea.  To 
remedy  this  evil,  spirits  of  wine  are  furnished  to  keepers,  but  does  not  wholly 
remove  the  difficulty. 


DRYING   FISH,  LITTLE   HARBOR. 

Afterward  we  spoke  of  the  commerce  of  Marblehead.  The  only  craft 
now  in  port  were  five  or  six  ballast-lighters  that  had  wintered  in  the  upper 
harbor;  with  this  exception  it  was  deserted.  The  keeper  had  been  master  of 
a  fishing  vessel.  I  could  not  help  remarking  to  him  on  this  ominous  state 
of  things. 

"I  have  seen  as  many  as  a  hundred  and  twenty  vessels  lying  below  us 
here,  getting  ready  for  a  cruise  on  the  Banks,"  he  said. 

"And  now?" 

"  Now  there  are  not  more  than  fifteen  sail  that  hail  out  of  here." 

"  So  that  fishing,  as  a  business — " 

"Is  knocked  higher  than  a  kite." 

Will  it  ever  come  down  again  ? 


MARBLEHEAD.  233 

We  commiserate  the  situation  of  an  individual  out  of  business;  what  shall 
we,  then,  say  of  a  town  thrown  out  of  employment  ?  Before  the  Revolution, 
Marblehead  was  our  principal  fishing  port.  When  the  war  came  this  indus 
try  was  broken  up  for  the  seven  years  of  the  contest.  Most  of  the  men  went 
into  the  army,  one  entire  regiment  being  raised  here.  Many  entered  on  board 
privateers  or  the  public  armed  vessels  of  the  revolted  colonies.  At  the  close 
of  the  war,  great  destitution  prevailed  by  reason  of  the  losses  in  men  the 
town  had  sustained ;  and  as  usual  a  lottery  was  resorted  to  for  the  benefit  of 
the  survivors.  The  War  of  1812  again  drove  the  Marblehead  fishermen  from 
their  peaceful  calling  to  man  our  little  navy.  At  its  close  five  hundred  of  her 
sons  were  in  British  prisons. 

Fisheries  have  often  been  called  the  agriculture  of  the  seas.  Sir  Walter 
Raleigh  attributed  the  wealth  and  power  of  Holland,  not  to  its  commerce  or 
carrying  trade,  but  to  its  fisheries.  Captain  John  Smith  was  of  this  opinion; 
so  were  Mirabeau  and  De  Witt.  Franklin  seemed  to  prefer  the  fisheries  of 
America  to  agriculture;  and  Edmund  Burke  paid  our  fishermen  the  noblest 
panegyric  of  them  all : 

"  No  sea  but  is  vexed  by  their  fisheries.  No  climate  that  is  not  witness 
to  their  toils.  Neither  the  perseverance  of  Holland,  nor  the  activity  of  France, 
nor  the  dexterous  and  firm  sagacity  of  English  enterprise  ever  carried  this 
most  perilous  mode  of  hardy  industry  to  the  extent  to  which  it  has  been 
pushed  by  this  recent  people — a  people  who  are  still,  as  it  were,  but  in  the 
gristle,  and  not  yet  hardened  into  the  bone  of  manhood."1 

Add  to  this  Napoleon's  opinion  that  the  American  was  the  superior  of  the 
English  seaman,  and  national  self-complacency  may  safely  rest  on  two  such 
eminent  authorities. 

The  light-keeper,  who  had  been  on  the  Banks,  informed  me  that  it  was 
still  the  custom,  when  lying  to  in  a  heavy  blow,  to  pour  oil  on  the  waves 
alongside  the  vessel;  and  that  it  was  effectual  in  smoothing  the  sea — not  a 
wave  breaking  within  its  influence.  Dr.  Franklin's  experiments  are  the  first 
I  remember  to  have  read  of.  A  single  tea-spoonful,  he  says,  quieted  the  ruffled 
surface  of  near  half  an  acre  of  water  in  a  windy  day,  and  rendered  it  as  smooth 
as  a  looking-glass.2  This  man  would  have  triumphed  over  nature  herself. 

Without  doubt  Marblehead  owes  a  large  share  of  her  naval  renown  to  her 
fishery ;  to  those  men  who  entered  the  sea-service  at  the  bowsprit,  like  the 
great  navigator,  Cook,  and  not  at  the  cabin  windows.  They  gave  a  distinct 
ively  American  character  to  our  little  navies  of  1776  and  1812.  Southey, 
while  writing  his  "Life  of  Nelson,"  flings  down  his  pen  in  despair  to  say: 
"  What  a  miserable  thing  is  this  loss  of  a  second  frigate  to  the  Americans. 
It  is  a  cruel  stroke;  and,  though  their  frigates  are  larger  ships  than  ours, 
must  be  felt  as  a  disgrace,  and  in  fact  is  disgrace.  It  looks  as  if  there  was  a 

1  "Address  to  the  Electors  of  Bristol."          2  "Philosophical  Transactions,''  vol.  Ixiv.,  part  ii. 


234  THE  NEW  ENGLAND  COAST. 

dry-rot  in  our  wooden  walls.  Is  it  that  this  captain  also  is  a  youngster  hoist 
ed  up  by  interest,  or  that  the  Americans  were  manned  by  Englishmen,  or  that 
our  men  do  not  fight  heartily,  or  that  their  men  are  better  than  ours?" 

One  writer  calls  the  fishery  "a  great  nursery  of  the  marine,  from  whence 
a  constant  supply  of  men,  inured  to  the  perils  of  the  sea,  are  constantly  ready 
for  the  service  of  their  country."  Supposing  this  doctrine  correct,  it  becomes 
an  interesting  question  where  the  sailors  of  future  navies  are  to  come  from? 
The  whale-fishery  has  been  fairly  beaten  out  of  the  field  by  oil-spouting  rocks. 
Why  should  we  brave  the  perils  of  the  Arctic  circle  when  by  sinking  a  tube 
in  Pennsylvania  we  may  strike  a  fellow  of  a  thousand  barrels,  and  wax  rich 
while  asleep?  New  London,  Nantucket,  New  Bedford,  and  Edgartown  have 
answered.  The  cod  and  mackerel  fisheries  have  dwindled  into  like  insignifi 
cance,  say  Marblehead,  Gloucester,  and  all  fishing  ports  along  shore.  When 
these  towns,  once  so  exclusively  maritime,  found  the  fishery  slipping  through 
their  fingers,  they  took  up  shoe-making,  and  at  present  you  will  see  plenty  of 
Crispins,  but  not  many  blue-jackets,  in  Marblehead.  Cobbling  is  now  carried 
on  in  the  barn-lofts,  fish-houses,  and  cottages.  Yet  this  change  of  condition 
is  not  met,  as  in  the  failing  whale-fishery, by  a  supply  from  a  different  source; 
fish  continues  to  be  as  highly  esteemed  and  in  greater  request  than  ever;  it  is 
the  supply,  not  the  demand,  that  is  diminishing. 

There  are  some  of  those  larger  shoe-factories  in  the  town  where  hides  are 
received  at  the  front  door,  and  are  delivered  at  the  back,  in  an  incredibly 
short  time,  ready  for  wear.  The  young  men  I  saw  in  long  aprons  at  the 
benches  had  none  of  the  rugged  look  of  their  fathers.  Their  white  arms 
showed  little  of  the  brawn  that  comes  from  constant  handling  of  the  oar. 
The  air  of  the  workshop  was  stifling,  and  I  gladly  left  it,  thinking  these 
were  hardly  the  fellows  to  stand  by  the  guns  or  reef-tackles.  One  old  man 
with  whom  I  conversed  bitterly  deplored  that  shoe-making  had  killed  fish 
ing,  and  had  made  the  young  men,  as  he  phrased  it,  "  nash,"  which  is,  what 
they  say  of  fish  that  the  sun  has  spoiled.  At  the  time  I  was  there  shoe- 
making  itself  was  suffering  from  a  depression  of  trade,  and  many  of  the  in 
habitants  appeared  to  be  in  a  state  of  uncertainty  as  to  their  future  that,  I  im 
agine,  may  become  chronic.  One  individual,  while  lamenting  the  decline  of 
business,  brightened  up  as  he  said,  "  But  I  understand  they  an't  much  better 
off  at  Beverly." 

The  decline  of  the  cod-fishery  is  attributed  to  the  use  of  trawls,  and  to  the 
greed  that  kills  the  goose  that  has  laid  the  golden  egg.  Formerly  fish  were 
taken  with  hand-lines  only,  over  the  side  of  the  vessel.  Then  they  began  to 
carry  dories,  in  which  the  crew  sought  out  the  best  places.  The  men  lost  in 
fogs  or  bad  weather  while  looking  for  or  visiting  their  trawls  swell  the  list 
of  casualties  year  by  year.  Fitting  out  fishing-vessels,  instead  of  being  the 
simple  matter  it  once  was,  has  become  an  affair  of  capital,  the  trawls  for  a 
vessel  sometimes  costing  fifteen  hundred  dollars. 


MARBLEHEAD. 


235 


Douglass  gives  some  particulars  of  the  fishery,  as  practiced  in  his  own  and 
at  an  earlier  day.  He  says  the  North  Sea  cod,  and  those  taken  on  the  Irish 
coast  were  considered  better  than  the  American  fish,  but  were  inadequate  to 
the  supply.  No  fish  were  considered  merchantable  in  England  or  Ireland 
less  than  eighteen  inches  long  from  the  first  fin  to  the  beginning  of  the  tail. 
In  Newfoundland  they  worked  their  fish  "  belly  down ;"  in  New  England  they 
were  worked  with  their  backs  downward,  to  receive  more  salt,  and  add  to 
their  weight.  The  stock-fish  of  Norway  and  Iceland  were  cured  without  salt, 
by  hanging  them  in  winter  upon  sticks  called  by  the  Dutch  "stocks"— this 
may  have  been  the  origin  of  our  dunfish.  The  fish  made  in  Marblehead  for 


UNLOADING    FISH. 


Spain  were  known  as  "  Bilboa  drithe,"  and  could  be  held  out  horizontally  by 
the  tail.  Those  cured  for  the  western  market  were  called  "Albany  drithe," 
from  the  fact  that  Albany  was  the  head-quarters  of  that  trade. 

To  quote  from  Douglass,  he  says:  "In  1746  Marblehead  ships  off  more 
dried  cod  than  all  the  rest  of  New  England  besides.  Anno  1732  a  good  fish 
year,  and  in  profound  peace,  Marblehead  had  about  one  hundred  and  twenty 
schooners  of  about  fifty  tons  burden,  seven  men  aboard,  and  one  man  ashore 
to  make  the  fish,  or  about  one  thousand  men  employed,  besides  the  seamen 
who  carry  the  fish  to  market.  Two  hundred  quintals  considered  a  fare.  In 
1747  they  have  not  exceeding  seventy  schooners,  and  make  five  fares  yearly 
to  I.  Sables,  St.  George's  Banks,  etc." 


236  THE  NEW  ENGLAND  COAST. 

M.  Rochefoucauld  Liancourt,  who  visited  New  England  in  1799,  making 
a  tour  of  the  coast  as  far  as  the  Penobscot,  says  at  that  time  the  vessels  were 
usually  of  seventy  tons,  and  had  a  master,  seven  seamen,  and  a  boy.  The 
owner  had  a  quarter,  the  dryer  on  the  coast  an  eighth,  and  the  rest  was 
shared  by  the  master  and  seamen,  in  proportion  to  the  fish  they  had  taken. 
Every  man  took  care  of  his  own  fish. 

As  early  as  1631  Governor  Matthew  Cradock  established  a  fishing  station 
at  Marblehead,  in  charge  of  Isaac  Allerton,  whose  name  appears  fifth  on  the 
celebrated  compact  of  the  Pilgrims,  signed  at  Cape  Cod,  November  llth,  1620.' 
Winthrop  mentions  in  his  journal  that  as  the  Arabella  was  standing  in  for 
Naumkeag,  on  the  12th  of  June,  1630,  Mr.  Allerton  boarded  her  in  a  shallop 
as  he  was  sailing  to  Pernaquid.  Moses  Maverick  lived  at  Marblehead  with 
Allerton,  and  married  his  daughter  Sarah.  In  1635  Allerton  conveyed  to  his 
son-in-law  all  the  houses,  buildings,  and  stages  he  had  at  Marblehead.  In  1638 
Moses  was  licensed  to  sell  a  tun  of  wine  a  year. 

In  Winthrop's  "Journal,"  under  the  date  of  1633,  is  the  following  with 
reference  to  this  plantation  :2 

"February  1. — Mr.  Cradock's  house  at  Marblehead  was  burnt  clown  about 
midnight  before,  there  being  then  in  it  Mr.  Allerton,  and  many  fishermen 
whom  he  employed  that  season,  who  all  were  preserved  by  a  special  provi 
dence  of  God,  with  most  of  his  goods  therein,  by  a  tailor,  who  sat  up  that 
night  at  work  in  the  house,  and,  hearing  a  noise,  looked  out  and  saw  the  house 
on  fire  above  the  oven  in  the  thatch."3 

While  retracing  my  steps  back  to  town,  I  pictured  the  harbor  in  its  day 
of  prosperity.  A  hundred  sail  would  have  given  it  a  degree  of  animation 
quite  marvelous  to  see.  Six  hours  a  hundred  sharp  prows  point  up  the  har 
bor,  and  six  they  look  out  to  sea.  Above  the  tapering  forest  of  equal  growth 
are  thrust  the  crossed  spars  of  ships  from  Cadiz,  in  Spain.  Innumerable  wher 
ries  dart  about,  rowed  by  two  men  each  ;  they  are  strongly  built,  for  baiting 
trawls  on  the  banks  and  in  a  sea  is  no  child's  play.  The  cheery  cries,  rattling 
of  blocks,  and  universal  bustle  aboard  the  fleet  announce  the  preparations  for 
sailing.  At  the  top  of  the  flood  up  go  a  score  of  sails,  and  round  go  as  many 


1  A  headland  of  Boston  Harbor  is  named  for  him,  Point  Allerton. 

3  "Moses  Maverick  testified!  that  in  the  yeare  1640  or  41  the  toune  of  Salem  granted  unto  the 
inhabitants  of  Marblehead  the  land  we  now  injoy,  with  one  of  Salem,  to  act  with  us,  wh  acordingly 
was  acordingly  attended  unto  the  yeare  1648,  in  which  yeare  Marblehead  was  confirmed  a  tonne, 
and  to  that  time  y*  never  knew  or  understood  he  desented  from  what  was  acted  in  layeing  out  land 
or  stinting  the  Comons,  and  have  beene  accounted  a  Toune,  and  payd  dutyes  accordingly  as  it  hath 
been  required.  Taken  vpon  oath  ;  19 :  Imo  -^-.  WM.  HATHORNE,  Affit. 

"  (Original  Document.)  Vera  Copin,  taken  the  25  of  May,  1674, 

by  me,  Robert  Ford,  Cleric." 

3  Relics  of  Indian  occupation  have  been  found  in  Marblehead  at  various  times.  There  is  a  shell 
heap  on  the  Wyman  Farm,  on  the  line  of  the  Eastern  Railway,  quite  near  the  farm-house. 


MARBLEHEAD. 


237 


windlasses  to  a  rattling  chorus.  Anchors  are  hove  short  in  a  trice.  The 
vessels  first  tinder  way  draw  out  from  among  the  fleet,  clear  the  mouth  of  the 
harbor,  and  in  a  few  minutes  more  are  flinging  the  seas  from  their  bows  with 
Marblehead  Light  well  under  their  lee. 

I  do  not  know  who  first  discovered  Marblehead.  The  vague  idea  asso 
ciates  it  with  a  heap  of  sterile  rocks,  inhabited  by  fishermen  speaking  an  un 
intelligible  jargon.  Though  not  twenty  miles  from  the  New  England  metrop 
olis,  and  notwithstanding  its  past  is  interwoven  with  every  page  of  our  his 
toric  times,  less  is  known  of  it  than  would  seem  credible  to  the  intelligent 
reader.  A  faithful  chronicle  of  its  fortunes  would,  no  doubt,  be  sufficiently 


A   GROUP  OF  ANTIQUES. 

curious,  though  many  would,  I  fear,  prefer  the  stories  of  Tyre  and  Carthage. 
But  Marblehead  is  unique;  there  is  nothing  like  it  on  this  side  of  the  water. 

I  was  struck,  on  entering  the  place,  with  Whitefiekl's  observation  when  he 
asked  where  the  dead  were  buried ;  for  the  great  want  appears  to  be  earth. 
But  a  further  acquaintance  revealed  more  pleasant  inclosures  of  turf,  orchards, 
and  garden-spots  than  its  gaunt  crags  seemed  capable  of  sustaining.  The 
town  may  be  said  to  embrace  two  very  dissimilar  portions,  of  which  the 
larger  appears  paralyzed  with  age,  and  the  other  the  outgrowth  of  a  newer 
and  more  thriving  generation.  It  is  with  the  old  town  I  have  to  do. 

I  preferred  to  commit  myself  to  the  guidance  of  the  narrow  streets,  and 
drift  about  wherever  they  listed.  The  stranger  need  not  try  to  settle  his 


238  THE  NEW  ENGLAND  COAST. 

topography  beforehand.  He  would  lose  his  labor.  It  was  only  after  a  third 
visit  that  I  began  to  have  some  notions  of  the  maze  of  rocky  lanes,  alleys,  and 
courts.  Caprice  seemed  to  have  governed  the  location  of  a  majority  of  the 
houses  by  the  water-side,  and  the  streets  to  have  adjusted  themselves  to  the 
wooden  anarchy;  or  else  the  idea  forced  itself  upon  you  that  the  houses  must 
have  been  stranded  here  by  the  flood,  remaining  where  the  subsiding  waters 
left  them;  for  they  stand  anywhere  and  nowhere,  in  a  ravine  or  atop  a  cliff, 
crowding  upon  and  elbowing  each  other  until  no  man,  it  would  seem,  might 
know  his  own.  How  one  of  those  ancient  mariners  rolling  heavily  homeward 
after  a  night's  carouse  could  have  found  his  own  dwelling,  is  a  mystery  I  do 
not  undertake  to  solve. 

M.  De  Chastellux,  who  had  a  compliment  ready-made  for  every  thing 
American,  was  accosted  when  in  Boston  with  the  remark, 

"Marquis,  you  find  a  crooked  city  in  Boston?" 

"Ah,  ver  good,  ver  good,"  said  the  chevalier;  "  it  show  de  liberte" 

I  found  Washington  Street  a  good  base  of  operations.  A  modern  dwelling 
is  rarely  met  with  between  this  thoroughfare  and  the  water.  On  State  (for 
merly  King)  Street  there  is  but  one  house  less  than  a  century  old,  and  the 
frame  of  that  one  was  being  raised  the  day  Washington  came  to  town.  Even 
he  was  struck  by  the  antiquated  look  of  the  buildings.  The  long  exemption 
from  fire  is  little  less  than  miraculous,  for  a  building  of  brick  or  stone  is  an 
exception.  Old  houses,  gambrel-roofed,  hip-roofed,  and  pitch-roofed,  with  an 
occasional  reminiscence  of  London  in  Milton's  day,  are  ranged  on  all  sides; 
little  altered  in  a  hundred  years,  though  I  should  have  liked  better  to  have 
chanced  this  way  when  the  porches  of  some  were  projecting  ten  feet  into  the 
street.  I  enjoyed  losing  myself  among  them;  for,  certes,  there  is  more  of  the 
crust  of  antiquity  about  Marblehead  than  any  place  of  its  years  in  America, 

An  air  of  snug  and  substantial  comfort  hung  about  many  of  the  older 
houses,  and  some  localities  betokened  there  was  an  upper  as  well  as  a  nether 
stratum  of  society  in  Marblehead.  Fine  old  trees  flourished  in  secluded  neigh 
borhoods,  where  the  brass  door-knockers  shone  with  unwonted  lustre.  I  think 
my  fingers  itched  to  grasp  them,  so  suggestive  were  they  of  feudal  times  when 
stranger  knight  summoned  castle-warden  by  striking  with  his  sword-hilt  on 
the  oaken  door.  Fancy  goes  in  unbidden  at  their  portals,  and  roves  among 
their  cramped  corridors  and  best  rooms,  peering  into  closets  where  choice 
china  is  kept,  or  rummaging  among  the  curious  lumber  of  the  garrets,  the  ac 
cumulations  of  many  generations.  On  the  whole,  the  dwellings  represent  so 
far  as  they  may  a  singular  equality  of  condition.  It  is  only  by  turning  into 
some  court  or  by-way  that  you  come  unexpectedly  upon  a  mansion  having 
about  it  some  relics  of  a  former  splendor.  Though  Marblehead  has  its  Bil 
lingsgate,  I  saw  nothing  of  the  squalor  of  our  larger  cities;  and  though  it 
may  have  its  Rotten  Row,  I  remarked  neither  lackeys  nor  showy  equipages. 

There  are  few  sidewalks  in  the  older  quarter.     The  streets  are  too  nar- 


MARBLEHEAD. 


239 


row  to  afford  such   a 
luxury,    averaging,    I 
should    say,  not   more 
than    a   rod    in   width 
in  the  older  ones,  with 
barely     room     for     a 
single     vehicle.       The 
passer-by  may,  if  he 
pleases,  look  into   the 
first -floor         sitting- 
rooms,    and     see     the 
family     gathered      at 
its  usual  occupations. 
Whether     it     be      a 
greater     indiscretion 
to  look  in  at  the 
windows     than 
to  look  out  of 
them,  as  the 
matrons  and 
maidens  are 
in   the   hab 
it      of     do 
ing  when   a 
stranger     is 
in  the  neighborhood, 
is  a  question  I  will 
ingly  remand  to  the 
decision  of  my  read 
ers  ;  yet  I  confess  I  found 
the  temptation  too  strong 
to   be   resisted.     In  order 
to  protect  those  houses  at 
the  street  corners,  a  mass 
ive  stone  post  is  often  seen 
imbedded  in  the  ground ; 
but  to  give  them  a  wide  berth 
is  impossible,  and  I  looked  for 
business   to   be  brisk   at   the 
wheelwright's  shop. 

Again,  as  the  street  encounters 
a  ledge  in  its  way,  one  side  of  it 
mounts  the  acclivity,  ten,  twenty 


LEE   STREET. 


240  THE  NEW  ENGLAND  COAST. 

feet  above  your  head,  while  the  other  keeps  the  level  as  before.  Such  acci 
dental  looking-down  upon  their  neighbors  does  not,  perhaps,  argue  moral  or 
material  pre-eminence;  but,  for  all  that,  there  may  be  a  shilling  side.  One 
thing  about  these  old  houses  impressed  me  pleasantly;  though  many  of  them 
were  guiltless  of  paint,  and  on  some  roofs  mosses  had  begun  to  creep,  and  a 
yellow  rust  to  cover  the  clapboards,  there  were  few  windows  that  did  not 
boast  a  goodly  show  of  scarlet  geraniums,  fuchsias,  or  mignonnette,  with  ivy 
clustering  lovingly  about  the  frames,  making  the  dark  old  casements  blos 
som  again,  and  glow  with  a  wealth  of  warm  color. 

I  was  too  well  acquainted  with  maritime  towns  to  be  surprised  at  finding 
fishing-boats,  even  of  a  few  tons  burden,  a  quarter  of  a  mile  from  the  water. 
They  might  even  be  said  to  crop  out  with  remarkable  frequency.  Some  were 
covered  with  boughs,  their  winter  protection ;  others  were  being  patched, 
painted,  or  calked,  preparatory  for  launching,  with  an  assiduity  and  solicitude 
that  can  only  be  appreciated  by  the  owners  of  such  craft.  On  the  street  that 
skirts  the  harbor  I  saw  a  fisherman  just  landed  enter  his  cottage,  "  paying 
out,"  as  he  went,  from  a  coil  of  rope,  one  end  being,  I  ascertained,  fastened  to 
his  wherry.  I  remember  to  have  seen  in  Mexico  the  vaqueros,  on  alighting 
from  their  mules,  take  from  the  pommel  of  their  saddles  some  fathoms  of 
braided  hair-rope,  called  a  lariat,  and,  on  entering  a  shop  or  dwelling,  uncoil 
it  as  they  went.  The  custom  of  these  Marblehead  fishermen  seemed  no  less 
ingenious. 

In  a  sea-port  my  instinct  is  for  the  water.  I  have  a  predilection  for  the 
wharves,  and,  though  I  could  well  enough  dispense  with  their  smells,  for  their 
sights  and  sounds.  The  cross-ways  in  Marblehead  seem  in  search  of  the 
harbor  as  they  go  wriggling  about  the  ledges.  I  should  say  they  had  been 
formed  on  the  ancient  footpaths  leading  down  to  the  fishing  stages.  At  the 
head  of  one  pier,  half  imbedded  in  the  earth,  was  an  old  honey-combed  cannon 
that  looked  as  if  it  might  have  spoken  a  word  in  the  dispute  with  the  mother 
country,  but  now  played  the  part  of  a  capstan,  and  truant  boys  were  casting 
dirt  between  its  blistered  lips.  In  Red  Stone  Cove  there  lay,  stranded  and 
broken  in  two,  a  long-boat,  brought  years  ago  from  China,  perhaps,  on  the  deck 
of  some  Indiaman.  Its  build  was  outlandish ;  so  unlike  the  wherries  that 
were  by,  yet  so  like  the  craft  that  swim  in  the  turbid  Yang  Tse.  I  took  a 
seat  in  it,  and  was  carried  to  the  land  of  pagodas,  opium,  and  mandarins. 
Its  sheathing  of  camphor- wood  still  exhaled  the  pungent  odor  of  the  aro 
matic  tree.  On  either  quarter  was  painted  an  enormous  eye  that  seemed 
to  follow  you  about  the  strand.  In  all  these  voyages  some  part  of  the  Old 
World  seems  to  have  drifted  westward,  and  attached  itself  to  the  shores  of 
the  New.  Here  it  was  a  Portuguese  from  the  Tngus,  or  a  Spaniard  of  Ali 
cante ;  elsewhere  a  Norwegian,  Swede,  or  Finn,  grafted  on  a  strange  clirne 
and  way  of  life. 

The  men  I  saw  about  the  wharves,  in  woolen  "jumpers"  and  heavy  fish- 


MARBLEHEAD. 


241 


ing  boots,  had  the  true  "guinea-stamp"  of  the  old  Ironsides  of  the  sea.  To 
see  those  lumbering  fishermen  in  the  streets  you  would  not  think  they  could 
be  so  handy,  or  tread  so  lightly  in  a  dory.  I  saw  there  an  old  foreign-looking 
seaman,  one  of  those  fellows  with  short,  bowed  legs,  drooping  shoulders,  con 
tracted  eyelids,  and  hands  dug  in  their  pockets,  who  may  be  met  with  at  all 
hours  of  the  day  and  night  hulking  about  the  quays  of  a  shipping  town. 
This  man  eyed  the  preparations  of  amateur  boatmen  with  the  contemptuous 
curiosity  often  vouchsafed  by  such  personages  in  the  small  affair  of  getting  a 
pleasure-boat  under  way.  One  poor  fellow,  who  kept  a  little  shop  where  he 
could  hear  the  wash  of  the  tide  on  the  loose  pebbles  of  the  cove,  told  me  he 


TUCKER'S  WHARF— THE  STEPS. 

had  lost  his  leg  by  the  cable  getting  a  turn  round  it.  Though  they  have  a 
rough  outside,  these  men  have  hearts.  His  skipper,  he  said,  had  put  about, 
though  it  was  a  dead  loss  to  him,  and  sailed  a  hundred  miles  to  land  his  mu 
tilated  shipmate. 

How  did  Marblehead  look  in  the  olden  time  ?  Its  early  history  is  allied 
with  that  of  Salem,  of  which  it  formed  a  part  until  1648.  Francis  Higginson, 
who  came  over  in  1629,  says,  in  that  year,  "There  are  in  all  of  us,  both  old 
and  new  planters,  about  three  hundred,  whereof  two  hundred  of  them  are  set 
tled  at  Nehumkek,  now  called  Salem ;  and  the  rest  have  planted  themselves 
at  Masathulets  Bay,  beginning  to  build  a  town  there  which  wee  do  call 

16 


242 


THE  NEW  ENGLAND  COAST. 


Cherton  or  Charles  Town."  His  New  England's  "Plantation"  is  curious 
reading.  I  have  observed  in  my  researches  that  these  old  divines  are  often 
fond  of  drawing  the  long  bow,  a  failing  of  which  Higginson,  one  of  the  earliest, 
seems  conscious  when  he  asks  in  his  exordium, "  Shall  such  a  man  as  I  lye? 
No,  verily  !" 

William  Wood,  describing  the  place  in  1633,  says  of  it :  "Marvil  Head  is 
a  place  which  lyeth  4  miles  full  south  from  Salem,  and  is  a  very  convenient 
place  for  a  plantation,  especially  for  such  as  will  set  upon  the  trade  of  fishing. 
There  was  made  here  a  ship's  loading  offish  the  last  year,  where  still  stand 
the  stages  and  drying  scaffolds."  In  1635,  the  court  order  that  "  there  shalbe 
a  Plantacion  at  Marblehead." 

John  Josselyn  looked  in  here  in  1663.     "Marvil,  or  Marblehead,"  he  says, 


GREGORY   STREET. 


is  "  a  small  harbour,  the  shore 
rockie,  on  which  the  town  is 
built,  consisting  of  a  few  scat 
tered  houses ;  here  they  have 
stages  for  fishermen,  orchards,  and  gardens  half  a  mile  within  land,  good  pas 
tures,  and  arable  land." 

It  had  now  begun  to  emerge  from  the  insignificance  of  a  fishing  village, 
and  to  assume  a  place  among  the  number  of  maritime  towns.  In  1696  a 
French  spy  makes  report:  "Marvalet  est  compose  de  100  ou  120  maisons 
pescheurs  oh  il  pent  entrer  de  gros  vaisseaux." 

In  l707-'8  Marblehead  was  represented  to  the  Lords  of  Trade  as  a  smug 
gling  port  for  Boston,  for  which  it  also  furnished  pilots.  A  few  years  earlier 
(1704)  Quelch,  the  pirate,  had  been  apprehended  there,  after  having  scattered 
his  gold  right  and  left.  But  it  was  not  until  an  order  had  come  from  the 
Governor  and  Council  at  Boston  that  he  was  arrested,  nor  had  there  been  a 


MARBLEHEAD.  243 

province  law  against  piracy  until  within  a  few  years.1  Seven  of  Quelch's 
gang  were  taken  by  Major  Stephen  Sewall ;  and  the  inhabitants  of  Marble- 
head  were  required  to  bring  in  the  gold  coin,  melted  down,  and  silver  plate 
they  had  not  been  unwilling  to  receive. 

It  was,  no  doubt,  owing  to  the  lawless  habits  introduced  that  the  charac 
ter  of  the  sea-faring  population  partook  of  a  certain  wildness — such  as  good 
Parson  Barnard  inveighs  against  —  manifesting  itself  in  every-day  transac 
tions,  and  infusing  into  the  men  an  adventurous  and  reckless  spirit  which 
fitted  them  in  a  measure  for  deeds  of  daring,  and  gave  to  the  old  sea-port  no 
small  portion  of  the  notoriety  it  enjoys. 

Mr.  Barnard  speaks  of  the  earlier  class  of  fishermen  as  a  rude,  swearing, 
fighting,  and  drunken  crew.  The  Rev.  Mr.  Whitwell,  in  his  discourse  on  the 
disasters  of  1 770,  does  not  give  them  a  better  character.  "  No  wonder,"  he  says, 
"  the  children  of  such  parents  imitate  their  vices,  and,  when  they  return  from 
their  voyages,  have  learned  to  curse  and  damn  their  younger  brothers."  He 
continues  to  pour  balm  into  their  wounds  in  this  wise  :  "  We  hope  we  shall  hear 

no  more  cursing  or  profaneness  from  your  mouths Instead  of  spending 

your  time  in  those  unmanly  games  which  disgrace  our  children  in  the  streets, 
we  trust  you  will  be  seriously  concerned  for  the  salvation  of  your  souls." 

Austin,  in  his  "  Life  of  Elbridge  Gerry,"  speaks  of  the  fishermen  as  a  sober 
and  industrious  class;  but  the  testimony  of  local  historians  is  wholly  opposed 
to  his  assertion.2  They  passed  their  winters  in  a  round  of  reckless  dissipa 
tion,  or  until  the  arrival  of  the  fishing  season  set  half  the  town  afloat  again. 
It  was  then  left  in  the  hands  of  the  women,  the  elders,  and  a  few  merchants. 
There  is  much  in  the  annals  of  such  a  community  to  furnish  materials  for  his 
tory,  or,  on  a  lesser  scale,  hints  for  romance.  Captain  Goelet,  who  was  here 
in  1750,  estimated  the  town  to  contain  about  four  hundred  and  fifty  houses. 

"  They  were,"  he  said,  "all  wood  and  clapboarded,  the  generality  miserable  buildings,  mostly  close 
in  with  the  rocks,  with  rocky  foundations  very  Cragy  and  Crasey.  The  whole  towne  is  built 
upon  a  rock,  which  is  heigh  and  steep  to  the  water.  The  harbour  is  sheltered  by  an  island,  which 
runs  along  parallel  to  it  and  brakes  off  the  sea.  Vessells  may  ride  here  very  safe ;  there  is  a 
path  or  way  downe  to  the  warf,  which  is  but  small,  and  on  which  is  a  large  Ware  House  where 
they  land  their  fish,  etc.  From  this  heigh  Cliffty  shore  it  took  its  name.  I  saw  abl  5  topsail  ves 
sels  and  abl  10  schooners  or  sloops  in  the  harbour;  they  had  then  ab1  70  sail  schooners  a-fishing, 
with  about  600  men  and  Boys  imployd  in  the  fishery :  they  take  vast  quantitys  Cod,  which  they 
cure  heere.  Saw  several  thousand  flakes  then  cureing.  The  place  is  noted  for  Children,  and 
Nouriches  the  most  of  any  place  for  its  bigness  in  North  America ;  it's  said  the  chief  cause  is  attrib 
uted  to  their  feeding  on  Cod's  heads,  etc.,  which  is  their  Principall  Dish.  The  greatest  distaste  a 
person  has  to  this  place  is  the  stench  of  the  fish,  the  whole  air  seems  tainted  with  it.  It  may  in 
short  be  said  it's  a  Dirty  Erregular,  Stincking  place.'"' 

1  A  bill  against  piracy  was  ordered  to  be  brought  in  March  1st,  1686  ;  March  4th  the  bill  passed. 

2  The  first  mention  of  Marblehead  in  the  colony  records  I  have  seen  is  of  two  men  fined  there 
for  being  drunk,  in  the  year  1633. 

3  "New  England  Historical  and  Genealogical  Register,"  1870,  p.  57. 


244  THE  NEW  ENGLAND  COAST. 

The  fortunes  of  the  place  were  now  greatly  altered.  The  obscure  fishing 
village  had  become  a  bustling  port,  with  rich  cargoes  from  Spain  and  the 
Antilles  lying  within  its  rock-bound  shores.  Ships  were  being  built  in  the 
coves,  and  substantial  mansions  were  going  up  in  the  streets — in  whose  cel 
lars,  as  I  have  heard,  were  kegs  of  hard  dollars,  salted  down,  as  one  might  say, 
like  the  staple  of  Marblehead. 

John  Adams,  then  a  young  lawyer  on  the  circuit,  enters  in  his  diary,  under 
date  of  1766,  the  brief  impression  of  a  first  visit  to  Marblehead: 

"  14,  Thursday. — In  the  morning  rode  a  single  horse,  in  company  with  Mrs.  Cranch  and  Mrs. 
Adams,  in.  a  chaise  to  Marblehead.  The  road  from  Salem  to  Marblehead,  four  miles,  is  pleasant 
indeed  (so  I  found  it).  The  grass  plats  and  fields  are  delightful,  but  Marblehead  differs  from  Sa 
lem.  The  streets  are  narrow  and  rugged  and  dirty,  but  there  are  some  very  grand  buildings." 

As  John  Adams  saw  it  so  does  the  stranger  of  to-day,  ignoring  such  mod 
ern  improvements  as  railway,  gas-works,  telegraph,  and  factories,  and  sticking 
closely  to  the  skirts  of  the  old  town. 

I  should  say  Marblehead  might  still  assert  its  title  to  the  number  of  chil 
dren  it  "nourishes."  Certainly  they  seemed  out  of  all  proportion  to  the  adult 
population.  Instinct  guides  them  to  the  water  from  their  birth,  and  they  may 
be  seen  paddling  about  the  harbor  in  stray  wherries  or  clambering  up  the 
rigging  of  some  collier,  in  emulation  of  their  elders.  Even  their  talk  has  a 
salty  flavor.  I  recollect  an  instance,  which  must  lose  by  the  relation.  A 
young  scape-grace  having  incurred  the  maternal  displeasure,  and  then  taken 
to^his  heels  to  escape  chastisement,  the  good- wife  gave  chase,  brandishing  a 
broomstick  aloft,  and  breathing  vengeance  on  her  unnatural  offspring.  Hav 
ing  the  wind  fair  and  a  heavy  spread  of  petticoat,  she  was  rapidly  gaining 
on  the  youngster,  when  a  comrade,  who  was  watching  the  progress  of  the 
race  with  a  critical  eye,  bawled  out,  "Try  her  on  the  wind,  Bill;  try  her  on 
the  wind" 

A  sailor  on  shore  is  not  unlike  Napoleon's  dismounted  dragoon :  he  is  em 
phatically  a  fish  out  of  water.  One  talked  of  "  making  his  horse  fast ;"  an 
other  complained  that  his  neckerchief  was  "tew  taut;"  and  a  third  could  not 
understand  which  way  to  move  a  boat  until  his  companion  called  out,  "Haul 
to  the  west'ard,  can't  ye  ?" 

If  not  insular,  your  genuine  Marbleheader  is  the  next  thing  to  it.  The 
rest  of  the  world  is  merged  with  him  into  a  place  to  sell  his  fish  and  buy  his 
salt.  Even  Salem,  Beverly,  and  the  parts  adjacent  draw  but  little  on  his  sym 
pathy  or  his  fellowship:  in  short,  they  are  not  Marblehead.  During  the  Na 
tive  American  excitement  of  18 — ,  the  Marbleheaders  entered  into  the  move 
ment  with  enthusiasm.  A  caucus  being  assembled  to  nominate  town  officers, 
one  old  fisherman  came  into  the  town  hall  in  his  baize  apron,  just  as  he  had 
got  out  of  his  dory.  He  glanced  over  the  list  of  officers  with  an  approving 
grunt  at  each  name  until  he  came  to  that  of  Squire  Fabens.  Now  Squire 
Fabens,  though  a  Salem  man  born,  had  lived  a  score  of  years  in  Marblehead, 


MARBLEHEAD. 


245 


had  married,  and  held  office  there.  Turning  wrathfully  to  the  person  who 
had  given  him  the  ticket,  the  fisherman  tore  it  in  pieces,  exclaiming  as  he  did 
so,  "D'ye  call  that  a  Native  American  ticket?  Why,  there's  Squire  Fabens 
on  it ;  he  an't  a  Marbleheader !" 

Though  it  is  true  there  are  few  instances  of  the  fatal  straight  line  in  Mar- 
blehead,  those  who  are  native  there  are  far  from  appreciating  the  impression 
its  narrow  and  crooked  ways  make  on  the  stranger.  They,  at  any  rate,  ap 
peared  to  find  their  way  without  the  difficulty  I  at  first  experienced.  I  asked 
one  I  met  if  I  was  in  the  right  route  to  the  depot.  "Go  straight  ahead," 
was  his  injunction,  a  direction  nothing  but  a  round-shot  from  Fort  Sewall 
could  have  followed.  But  I  should  add  that  Marblehead  is  not  a  labyrinth, 
any  more  than  it  is  a  field  for  mis 
sionary  work :  it  has  churches,  banks, 
schools,  a  newspaper,  and  even  a  de 
bating  society ;  and  it  has  thorough 
fares  that  may  be  traversed  without  a 
guide. 

The  great  man  of  Marblehead  in 
the  colonial  day  was  Colonel  Jeremiah 
Lee,  whose  still  elegant  mansion  is  to 
be  seen  there.  Unlike  many  of  the 
gentry  of  his  time,  Colonel  Lee  was  a 
thorough-going  patriot.  He  was,  with 
Orne  and  Gerry,  a  delegate  to  the  first 
and  second  Provincial  Congresses  of 
1774.  When  the  famous  Revolution 
ary  Committee  of  Safety  and  Supplies 
was  formed,  he  became  and  continued 
a  member  until  his  death  in  May,  1775. 
Colonel  Lee- was  with  the  committee 
on  the  day  before  the  battle  of  Lexington,  and  with  Gerry  and  Orne  remained 
to  pass  the  night  at  the  Black  Horse  tavern  in  Menotomy,  now  Arlington. 
When  the  British  advance  reached  this  house  it  was  surrounded,  the  half- 
dressed  patriots  having  barely  time  to  escape  to  a  neighboring  corn-field, 
where  they  threw  themselves  upon  the  ground  until  the  search  was  over. 
From  the  exposure  incident  to  this  adventure  Lee  got  his  death.  His  towns 
men  treasure  his  memory  as  one  of  the  men  who  formed  the  Revolution, 
braved  its  dangers,  and  accepted  its  responsibilities.  Colonel  Lee  was  a 
stanch  churchman,  which  makes  his  adhesion  to  the  patriot  side  the  more 
remarkable. 

There  is  nothing  about  the  exterior  of  the  Lee  mansion  to  attract  the 
stranger's  attention,  though  it  cost  the  colonel,  when  furnished,  ten  thousand 
pounds  sterling.  As  was  customary,  its  offices  were  on  one  side  and  its  sta- 


LEE   HOUSE. 


246  THE  NEW  ENGLAND  COAST. 

bles  on  the  other,  with  a  court-yard  paved  with  beach-pebble,  in  which  the 
date  of  the  house,  1768, 1  may  be  traced.  Entrance  was  gained  on  front  and 
side  over  massive  freestone  steps,  that  show  the  print  of  time  to  have  pressed 
more  heavily  than  human  feet.  The  house,  long  since  deserted  by  the  family, 
is  now  occupied  as  a  bank. 

On  entering  the  mansion  of  the  Lees  the  visitor  is  struck  with  the  expan 
sive  area  of  the  hall,  which  is  six  paces  broad,  and  of  corresponding  depth. 
Age  has  imparted  a  rich  coloring  to  the  mahogany  wainscot  and  casing  of 
the  staircase.  The  balusters  are  curiously  carved  in  many  different  patterns; 
the  walls  are  still  hung  with  their  original  paper,  in  panels  representing  Ro 
man  or  Grecian  ruins,  with  trophies  of  arms,  or  implements  of  agriculture  or 
of  the  chase  between.  One  panel  represented  a  sea-fight  of  Blake  and  Van 
Tromp's  day.  Some  of  them  have  been  permanently  disfigured  by  the  use 
of  the  hall,  at  one  time,  as  a  fish-market.  In  a  corner,  a  trap-door  led  to  the 
old  merchant's  wine-cellar,  which  he  thus  kept  under  his  own  eye.  It  was 
after  a  visit  to  some  such  mansion  that  Daniel  Webster  asked,  "  Did  those 
old  fellows  go  to  bed  in  a  coach-and-four?" 

The  rooms  opening  at  the  right  and  left  of  the  hall  are  worthy  of  it,  espe 
cially  the  first  named,  which  is  wainscoted  from  floor  to  ceiling,  and  enriched 
with  elaborate  carving.  Over  the  fire-place  of  this  room  was  formerly  a  por 
trait  of  Esther  before  Ahasuerus,  beautifully  painted  on  a  panel.  There  is  an 
upper  hall  of  ample  size,  from  which  open  sleeping  apartments  with  pictured 
tiles,  recessed  windows,  and  panes  that  were  the  wonder  of  the  town,  in  which 
none  so  large  had  been  seen. 

Would  I  had  been  here  when  the  old  colonel's  slaves  kept  the  antique 
brasses  brightly  polished,  and  stout  logs  crackled  and  snapped  in  the  fire 
places,  in  the  day  of  coffin-clocks,  French  mirrors,  and  massive  old  plate,  when 
the  bowl  of  arrack-punch  stood  on  the  sideboard,  and  Copley's  portraits  of 
master  and  mistress  graced  the  walls.2  The  painter  has  introduced  the  col 
onel  in  a  brown  velvet  coat  laced  with  gold,  and  full-bottomed  wig.  He  was 
short  in  stature  and  rather  portly,  with  an  open  face,  thin  nostril,  and  fine,  in 
telligent  eye.  The  head  is  slightly  thrown  back,  a  device  of  the  artist  to  add 
height  to  the  figure.  Madam  Lee  is  in  a  satin  overdress,  with  a  pelisse  of 
ermine  negligently  cast  about  her  bare  shoulders.  She  looks  a  stately  dame, 
with  her  black  eyes  and  self-possessed  air,  or  as  if  she  might  have  kept  the 
colonel's  house,  slaves  included,  in  perfect  order.3 

When  General  Washington  was  making  his  triumphal  tour  of  the  East 
ern  States,  in  1789,  he  came  to  Marblehead.  It  was,  he  says, "four  miles  out 


1  I  have  seen  the  date  of  17G6  assigned  for  its  building. 

2  Think  of  Copley  painting  these  two  canvases,  eight  feet  long  by  five  wide,  and  in  his  best 
manner,  for  £25 ! 

9  These  portraits  are  now  in  possession  of  Colonel  William  Raymond  Lee,  of  Boston. 


MARBLEHEAD. 


247 


of  the  way ;  but  I  wanted  to  see  ft."  And  so  he  turned  aside  to  ride  through 
its  rocky  lanes,  and  look  into  the  faces  of  the  men  who  had  followed  him  from 
Cambridge  to  Trenton,  and  from  Trenton  to  Yorktown.  How  the  sight  of 
their  chief  must 
have  warmed  the 
hearts  of  those 
veterans !  He  jot 
ted  down  in  his 
diary  very  briefly 
what  he  saw  and 
heard  in  Marble- 
head:  "About  5000 
souls  are  said  to 
be  in  this  place, 
which  has  the  ap 
pearance  of  antiq 
uity  ;  the  houses 
are  old ;  the  streets 
dirty ;  and  the 
common  people 
not  very  clean. 
Before  we  entered 

the  town  we  were  TOWN  HOUSE  AND  SQUARE' 

met  and  attended  by  a  com'e,  till  we  were  handed  over  to  the  Selectmen,  who 
conducted  us,  saluted  by  artillery,  into  the  town  to  the  house  of  a  Mrs.  Lee, 
where  there  was  a  cold  collation  prepared ;  after  partaking  of  which,  we  vis 
ited  the  harbor,  etc."  Lafayette,  Monroe,  and  Jackson  have  been  entertained 
in  the  same  house. 

When  the  Revolutionary  junto  wished  to  organize  its  artillery,  William 
Raymond  Lee  was  summoned  to  Cambridge  to  command  one  of  the  com 
panies.  He  was  nephew  to  the  old  colonel,  valiantly  taking  up  the  cause 
where  his  uncle  had  laid  it  down.  Afterward  he  served  in  Glover's  regiment, 
passing  through  all  the  grades  from  captain  to  colonel.  Another  nephew  was 
that  John  Lee  who,  while  in  command  of  a  privateer  belonging  to  the  Tracys, 
with  a  battery,  part  of  iron  and  partly  of  wooden  guns,  captured  a  rich  ves 
sel  of  superior  force  in  the  bay.  Both  the  colonel's  fighting  nephews  were 
of  Manchester,  on  Cape  Ann. 

Threading  my  way  onward,  I  came  upon  the  old  Town-house,  the  Faneuil 
Hall  of  Marblehead,  in  which  much  treason  was  hatched  when  George  HI. 
was  king.  The  Whigs  of  Old  Essex  have  often  been  heard  there  when  grave 
questions  were  to  be  discussed,  and  the  jarring  atoms  of  society  have  oft  been 
summoned  greeting, 

"To  grand  parading  of  town-meeting." 


248 


THE  NEW  ENGLAND  COAST. 


In  the  old  Town-house  Judge  Story  went  to  school  and  was  fitted  for  col 
lege;  the  substantial  dwelling  in  which  he  was  born  being  nearly  opposite, 
with  its  best  parlor  become  an  apothecary's,  under  the  sign  of  Goodwin.  This 
house  was  the  dwelling  of  Dr.  Elisha  Story,  of  Revolutionary  memory,  and 
the  birthplace  of  his  son,  the  eminent  jurist.  The  physicians  of  Dr.  Story's 
time  usually  furnished  their  own  medicines.  In  cocked  hat  and  suit  of  rusty 
black,  with  saddle-bags  and  countenance  severe,  they  were  marked  men  in 
town  or  village.  Since  my  visit  to  Marblehead  the  last  of  Dr.  Story's  eighteen 
children,  Miss  Caroline  Story,  died  at  the  age  of  eighty-five.  The  chief-justice, 
her  brother,  was  one  of  the  most  lovable  of  men,  and  was  never,  I  believe, 
ashamed  of  the  slight  savor  of  the  dialect  that  betrayed  him  native  and  to 
the  manner  born.  •"' 

The  Episcopal  church  in  Marblehead  is  one  of  its  old  landmarks,  concur 
ring  fully,  so  far  as  outward  appearance  goes,  in  the  prevailing  mouldiness. 
It  is  not  remarkable  in  any  way  except  as  an  oddity  in  wood,  with  a  square 

tower  of  very  mod 
est  height  sur 
mounting  a  broad 
and  sloping  roof. 
At  a  distance  it  is 
scarcely  to  be  dis 
tinguished  in  the 
wooden  chaos  ris 
ing  on  all  sides; 
and  not  long  ago 
its  front  was  mask 
ed  by  buildings,  so 
that  the  entrance- 
door  could  only  be 
reached  by  a  wind 
ing  path.  The  par 
ish  has  at  length 
cleared  its  ancient 
glebe  of  intruders, 
and  the  old  church 
is  no  longer  jostled 
by  its  dissenting 

neighbors.     Imme- 
ST.  MICHAEL'S,  MARBLEHEAD.  -,.    ,    ,  -,.    .    . 

diately     adjoining 

is  a  little  church-yard,  in  which  repose  the  ashes  of  former  worshipers  who 
loved  these  old  walls,  and  would  lie  in  their  shadow. 

St.  Michael's,  as  originally  built,  must  have  been  an  antique  gem.  Ac 
cording  to  the  account  given  me  by  the  rector,  it  had  seven  gables,  topped 


MARBLEHEAD. 


249 


by  a  tower,  from  which  sprung  a  shapely  spire,  with  another  on  the  north  and 
one  on  the  south  side.  The  form  of  the  building  was  a  square,  with  entrances 
on  the  south  and  west.  The  aisles  crossed  each  other  at  right  angles;  the 
ceiling,  supported  by  oaken  columns,  was  in  the  form  of  a  St.  Andrew's  cross. 
The  present  barren  area  of  pine  shingles  was  built  above  the  old  roof,  which  it 
extinguished  effectually.  Cotton  Mather — he  did  not  allude  to  the  Church  of 
England — styled  the  New  England  churches  golden  candlesticks,  set  up  to  illu 
minate  the  country;  but  what  would  he  have  said  had  he  lived  to  see  the  Puri 
tan  Thanksgiving  and  Fast  gradually  superseded  by  Christmas  and  by  Easter? 

The  interior  of  the  old  church  well  repays  a  visit.  Its  antiquities  are 
guarded  as  scrupulously  as  the  old  faith  has  been.  Suspended  from  the  ceil 
ing  is  a  chandelier,  a  wonderful  affair  in  brass,  the  gift  of  a  merchant  of  Bris 
tol,  England.  The  little  pulpit,  successor  to  an  earlier  one  of  wine-glass  pat 
tern,  belongs  to  an  era  before  the  in 
troduction  of  costly  woods.  Above  the 
altar  is  the  Decalogue,  in  the  ancient 
lettering,  done  in  England  in  1714. 
Manifestly  St.  Michael's  clings  to  its 
relics  with  greater  affection  than  did 
that  parish  in  the  Old  Country,  which 
offered  its  second-hand  Ten  Command 
ments  for  sale,  as  it  was  going  to  buy 
new  ones.  In  the  organ-loft  is  a  dimin 
utive  instrument,  going  as  far  back  as 
the  day  of  Snetzler.  Notwithstanding 
the  disappearance  of  the  cross  from  its 
pinnacle,  and  of  the  royal  emblems  from 
their  place  (save  the  mark !)  above  the 
Decalogue,  St.  Michael's  remains  to-day 
an  interesting  memorial  of  Anglican 
worship  in  the  colonies.  It  was  the  third  church  in  Massachusetts,  and  the 
fourth  in  all  New  England,  those  of  Boston,  Newbury,  and  Newport  alone  • 
having  preceded  it. 

The  names  of  famous  people  are  perpetuated  in  the  place  of  their  birth  in 
many  ways.  I  noticed  in  Marblehead  the  streets  bore  the  names  of  Selman, 
Tucker,  Glover,  etc.  Academies,  public  halls,  and  engine-houses  keep  their 
memory  green,  or  will  do  so  until  the  era  of  snobbery  ingulfs  the  place,  and 
pulls  the  old  signs  down.  Its  future,  I  apprehend,  is  to  become  a  summer  re 
sort.  When  that  period  of  intermittent  prosperity  shall  have  set  in  in  full 
tide,  it  will  be  difficult,  if  not  impossible,  to  preserve  the  peculiar  quaintness 
which  now  makes  Marblehead  the  embodiment  of  the  old  New  England  life. 

O 

Elbridge  Gerry  was  born  in  Marblehead.  He  was  of  middle  stature,  thin, 
of  courteous,  old-school  manners,  and  gentlemanly  address.  lie  has  the  name 


ELBK1DGE    GEKRY. 


250 


THE  NEW  ENGLAND  COAST. 


of  a  strong  parti 
san,  and  of  stand 
ing    godfather    to 
the     geographical 
monstrosity  called 
the    Gerrymander, 
which  has  added  a 
word  to   our  political  vocabulary.1 
A   more   effective   party  caricature 
has  never  appeared  in  America.     It 
is  admitted  it  has  given  its  author 
a  notoriety  that  has  somewhat  ob 
scured  eminent  public   service,  and 
made  his  name  a  by-word  for  polit 
ical  chicanery. 

Those  who  believe  the  worst 
phases  of  political  controversy  have 
been  reserved  to  our  own  time  would 
do  well  to  read  the  history  of  the 
administrations  of  Washington,  Ad 
ams,  and  Jefferson,  whom  we  are  ac 
customed  to  name  with  reverence  as 
the  fathers  of  the  republic,  yet  who, 
while  in  office,  were  the  objects  of  as 
much  personal  malignity  and  abuse  as  their  successors  have  received.  Mr. 
Gerry  was  invited  to  take  a  seat  in  the  Massachusetts  Convention  when  the 
constitution  of  1787  was  under  consideration,  in  order  that  that  body  might 
have  the  benefit  of  his  conceded  sagacity  and  knowledge  of  affairs.  He  op 
posed  the  adoption  of  the  constitution  before  the  Convention.  At  heart  Mr. 
Gerry  was  an  undoubted  patriot.  Once,  when  he  believed  himself  dying,  he  re 
marked  that  if  he  had  but  one  day  to  live  it  should  be  devoted  to  his  country. 
Elbridge  Gerry  was  destined  for  the  practice  of  medicine,  but  engaged  in 
mercantile  pursuits  instead ;  having  acquired  a  competency  at  the  time  of  the 
beginning  of  the  Revolution,  he  was  free  to  take  part  in  the  struggle.  He 
held  many  important  offices,  and  his  public  career,  full  of  the  incidents  of 
stirring  times,  was  marked  also  by  some  eccentricities.  Mr.  Gerry,  as  early 
as  November,  1775,  introduced  a  bill  into  the  Provincial  Congress  for  the 
fitting-out  of  armed  vessels  by  Massachusetts.  In  the  direction  of  inaugu 
rating  warfare  with  England  at  sea,  he  was,  without  doubt,  the  pioneer. 

1  It  is  not  settled  who  is  entitled  to  the  authorship  of  the  word  "Gerrymander,"  for  which  a 
number  of  claimants  have  appeared.  The  map  of  Essex,  which  gave  rise  to  the  caricature,  was 
drawn  by  Nathan  Hale,  who  edited  the  Boston  Weekly  Messenger,  in  which  the  political  deformity 
first  appeared. 


THE   GERRYMANDER. 


MARBLE  HE  AD. 


251 


The  number 
of  naval  heroes 
whom  Marble- 
head  may  claim 
as  her  own  is 
something  sur 
prising.  There 
were  John  Sel- 
man  and  Nicho 
las  Broughton, 
who  sailed  in  two 
armed  schooners 
from  Beverly,  as 
early  as  October, 
1775,  with  in 
structions  from 
Washington  to 
intercept,  if  pos 
sible,  some  of  the 
enemy's  vessels  in 
the  Gulf  of  St. 
Lawrence.  Fail 
ing  in  this  object* 
they  landed  at 
St.  John's,  now 
Prince  Edward 
Island,  captured 
the  fort,  and 


"OLD  NORTH"  CONGREGATIONAL  CHURCH. 


brought  off  a  number  of  provincial  dignitaries  of  rank.  Washington,  who 
wanted  powrder,  and  not  prisoners,  wras  not  well  pleased  with  the  result  of 
this  expedition,  as  he  held  it  impolitic  then  to  embroil  the  revolted  colonies 
with  Canada.  Much  was  expected  of  the  hereditary  antipathy  of  the  French 
Canadians  for  their  English  rulers,  but  in  this  respect  the  general's  policy 
was  founded  in  a  mistaken  judgment  of  those  people. 

Commodore  Manly,  to  whom  John  Adams  says  the  first  British  flag  was 
struck,  was  either  native  born,  or  came  in  very  early  life  to  Marblehead.  He 
was  placed  in  command  of  the  first  cruiser  that  sailed  with  a  regular  com 
mission  from  Washington,  in  1775,  signalizing  his  advent  in  the  bay  in  the 
Lee — a  schooner  mounting  only  four  guns — by  the  capture  of  a  British  vessel 
laden  writh  military  stores,  of  the  utmost  value  to  the  Americans  besieging 
Boston.  When  this  windfall  was  reported  to  Congress,  the  members  be 
lieved  Divine  Providence  had  interposed  in  their  favor.  Our  officers  de 
clared  their  wants  could  not  have  been  better  supplied  if  they  had  themselves 


252 


THE  NEW  ENGLAND  COAST. 


sent  a  schedule  of  military  stores  to  Woolwich  Arsenal.  So  apprehensive  was 
the  general  that  his  prize  might  slip  through  his  fingers,  that  all  the  carts  to 
be  obtained  in  the  vicinity  of  Cape  Ann  were  impressed,  in  "order  to  bring  the 
cargo  to  camp.  Manly  died  in  Boston,  in  1793,  in  circumstances  nearly  allied 
to  destitution.  He  was,  says  one  who  knew  him  well, "  a  handy,  hearty,  hon 
est,  benevolent,  blunt  man,  with  more  courage  than  good  conduct." 

Another  of  these  old  sea-dogs  was  Commodore  Samuel  Tucker,  the  son  of 

a  ship-master.  The  old 
house  in  which  he  was 
born  was  standing  on 
Rowland  Hill.  (I  do  not 
know  that  he  of  Surrey 
Chapel  had  any  thing  to 
do  with  the  name  in 
Marblehead.)  It  was  be 
fore  the  door  of  this  house 
that  Tucker,  in  his  shirt 
sleeves,  was  chopping 
wood  one  evening,  just 
at  dusk,  when  a  finely 
mounted  officer  clattered 
down  the  street.  Seeing 
Tucker,  the  officer  asked 
if  he  could  inform  him 
where  the  Honorable 
Samuel  Tucker  resided. 
Tucker,  astonished  at  the 
question,  answered  in  the 
negative,  saying,  "There 
is  no  such  man  lives  here; 
there  is  no  other  Sam 
Tucker  in  this  town  but  myself."  At  this  reply,  the  officer  raised  his  beaver, 
and,  bowing  low,  presented  him  a  commission  in  the  navy. 

Tucker,  in  1778,  was  taking  John  Adams  to  France  in  the  old  frigate  ^Bos- 
ton*  when  he  fell  in  with  an  enemy.  While  clearing  his  decks  for  action  he 
espied  Mr.  Adams,  musket  in  hand,  among  the  marines.  Laying  a  hand  on 
the  commissioner's  shoulder,  Tucker  said  to  him,  "I  am  commanded  by  the 
Continental  Congress  to  carry  you  safely  to  Europe,  and  I  will  do  it,"  at  the 
same  time  conducting  him  below. 

The  brave  Captain  Mugford,  whose  exploit  in  capturing  a  vessel  laden  with 


SAMUEL   TUCKEK. 


1  The  old  frigate  Boston  was  captured  at  Charleston  in  1780  by  the  British.     In  1804  Tom 
Moore  went  over  to  England  in  her,  she  being  then  commanded  by  Captain  J.  E.  Douglas. 


MARBLEHEAD. 


253 


powder  in  Boston  Harbor,  in  May,  1776,  proved  of  inestimable  value,  was  also 
an  inhabitant  of  Marblehead.  Like  Sclman  and  Broughton,  be  had  been  a 
captain  in  the  famous  Marblehead  regiment,  and  his  crew  were  volunteers 
from  it.  The  year  previous,  Mugford,  with  others,  had  been  impressed  on 
board  a  British  vessel,  the  Lively,  then  stationed  at  Marblehead.  Mugford's 
wife,  on  hearing  what  had  befallen  her  husband,  went  off  to  the  frigate  and 
interceded  with  the  captain  for  his  release,  alleging  that  they  were  just  mar 
ried,  and  that  he  was  her  sole  dependence  for  support.  The  Englishman,  very 
generously,  restored  Mugford  his  liberty. 

The  Trevetts,  father  and  son,  were  little  less  distinguished  than  any  al 
ready  named,  adding  to  the  high  renown  of  Marblehead,  both  in  the  Old  War 
and  in  the  later  contest  with  England. 

Glover  and  his  regiment  conferred  lasting  honor  on  this  old  town  by  the 
sea.  As  soon  as  it  had  been  deter 
mined  to  fit  out  armed  vessels,  Wash 
ington  intrusted  the  details  to  Glover, 
and  ordered  the  regiment  to  Beverly, 
where  these  amphibians  first  equipped 
and  then  manned  the  privateers.  The 
regiment  signalized  itself  at  Long  Isl 
and  and  at  Trenton,  and  ought  to  have 
a  monument  on  the  highest  point  of 
land  in  Marblehead,  with  the  names  of 
its  heroes  inscribed  in  bronze.  Gen 
eral  Glover  was  long  an  invalid  from 
the  effects  of  disease  contracted  in  the 
army,  dying  in  1797.1  He  had  been  a 
shoe-maker,  and  is,  I  imagine,  the  per 
son  referred  to  in  the  following  ex 
tract  from  the  memoirs  of  Madame 
Riedesel : 

"  Some  of  the  generals  who  accompanied  us  were  shoe-makers ;  and  upon 
their  halting  days  they  made  boots  for  our  officers,  and  also  mended  nicely 
the  shoes  of  our  soldiers.  One  of  our  officers  had  worn  his  boots  entirely  into 
shreds.  He  saw  that  an  American  general  had  on  a  good  pair,  and  said  to 
him,  jestingly, 'I  will  gladly  give  you  a  guinea  for  them.'  Immediately  the 
general  alighted  from  his  horse,  took  the  guinea,  gave  up  his  boots,  and  put 
on  the  badly-worn  ones  of  the  officer,  and  again  mounted  his  horse."  Gen 
eral  Glover's  house  is  still  standing  on  Glover  Square.  I  made,  as  every 
body  must  make,  in  Marblehead,  a  pilgrimage  to  Oakum  Bay,  a  classic  pre 
cinct,  and  to  the  humble  abode  of  Benjamin  Ireson,  whom  Whittier  has  made 


GENERAL   GLOVER. 


1  William  P.  Upham,  of  Salem,  has  written  a  memoir  of  Glover. 


254  THE  NEW  ENGLAND  COAST. 

immortal.  Questionless  the  poet  has  done  more  to  make  Marblehead  known 
than  all  the  historians  and  magazine-writers  put  together,  though  the  notori 
ety  is  little  relished  there.  The  facts  were  sufficiently  dramatic  as  they  ex 
isted  ;  but  Mr.  Whittier  has  taken  a  poet's  license,  and  arranged  them  to  his 
fancy.  Old  Flood  Ireson  suffered  in  the  flesh,  and  his  memory  has  been  pil 
loried  in  verse  for  a  crime  he  did  not  commit.  Nevertheless,  I  doubt  that 
the  people  of  Marblehead  forget  that  Pegasus  has  wings,  and  can  no  more 
amble  at  the  historian's  slow  place  than  he  can  thrive  on  bran  and  water. 

It  is  not  many  years  since  Ireson  was  alive,  broken  in  spirit  under  the  ob 
loquy  of  his  hideous  ride.  Later  in  life  he  followed  shore-fishing,  and  was 
once  blown  off  to  sea,  where  he  was  providentially  picked  up  by  a  coaster 
bound  to  some  Eastern  port.  I  do  not  think  he  could  have  declared  his 
right  name,  for  sailors  are  superstitious  folk,  and  he  would  have  been  account 
ed  a  Jonah  in  any  ship  that  sailed  these  seas.  His  wherry  having  been  cut 
adrift,  was  found,  and  Old  Flood  Ireson  was  believed  to  have  gone  to  the  bot 
tom  of  the  bay,  when,  to  the  genuine  astonishment  of  his  townsmen,  he  ap 
peared  one  day  plodding  wearily  along  the  streets.  Some  charitable  souls 
gave  him  another  wherry,  but  the  boys  followed  the  old  man  about  as  he 
cried  his  fish  with  their  cruel  shouts  of, 

"I,  Flood  Ireson,  for  leaving  a  wrack, 
Was  blowed  out  to  sea,  and  couldn't  get  back." 

There  is  book  authority  for  the  terrible  aspect  of  the  vengeance  of  the 
fish-wives  of  Marblehead,  so  picturesquely  portrayed  in  the  poet's  lines.  In 
crease  Mather,  in  a  letter  to  Mr.  Cotton,  23d  of  Fifth  month,  1677,  mentions 
an  instance  of  rage  against  two  Eastern  Indians,  then  prisoners  at  Marble- 
head  :  "  Sabbath-day  was  sennight,  the  women  at  Marblehead,  as  they  came 
out  of  the  meeting-house,  fell  upon  two  Indians  that  were  brought  in  as  cap 
tives,  and,  in  a  tumultuous  way,  very  barbarously  murdered  them.  Doubt 
less,  if  the  Indians  hear  of  it,  the  captives  among  them  will  be  served  accord 
ingly."  This  episode  recalls  the  rage  of  the  fish-women  of  Paris  during  the 
Reign  of  Terror,  those  unsexed  and  pitiless  viragos  of  La  Halle. 

I  could  discover  little  of  the  old  Marblehead  dialect,  once  so  distinctive 
that  even  the  better  class  were  not  free  from  it.  It  is  true  a  few  old  people 
still  retain  in  their  conversation  the  savor  of  it ;  but  it  is  dying  out.  Your 
true  Marbleheader  would  say,  "  barn  in  a  burn  "  for  "  born  in  a  barn."  His 
speech  was  thick  and  guttural;  only  an  occasional  word  falling  familiarly 
on  the  unaccustomed  ear.  All  the  world  over  he  was  known  so  soon  as  he 
opened  his  mouth.  The  idiom  may  have  been  the  outgrowth  of  the  place,  or 
perchance  a  reminiscence  of  the  speech  of  old-time  fishermen,  grounded,  as  I 
apprehend,  more  in  the  long  custom  of  an  illiterate  people  than  any  supposed 
relationship  with  our  English  mother-tongue.  "Whittier  was  acquainted  with 
the  jargon,  and  the  question  is  open  to  the  philologist. 


MARBLEHEAD. 


255 


There  is  a  legend  about  the  cove  near  Ireson's  of  a  "  screeching  woman  " 
done  to  death  by  pirates  a  century  and  a  half  or  more  past — a  shadowy  me 
morial  of  the  fact  of  their  presence  here  so  long  ago.  They  brought  her  on 
shore  from  their  ship,  and  murdered  her.  On  each  anniversary  of  her  death, 
says  the  legend,  the  town  was  thrilled  to  its  marrow  by  the  unearthly  out 
cries  of  the  pirates'  victim.  Many  believed  the  story,  while  not  a  few  had 
heard  the  screams.  Chief-justice  Story  was  among  those  who  asserted  that 
they  had  listened  to  those  midnight  cries  of  fear. 

Passing  over  the  causeway  and  under  the  gate-way  of  Fort  Sewall,  said  to 
have  been  named  from 
Chief -justice  Stephen 
Sewall,1      who      once 
taught  school  in  Mar- 
blehead,  I  entered  the 
spacious      parade,    on 
which  a  full  regiment 
might  easily  be  form 
ed.      The     fort      was 
built   about   1742,  and 
until  what  was  so  long 
known    as    "  the    late 
war"    with    England, 
remained    substantial 
ly  in  its  original  pic 
turesque  condition.    A 
very  old  man,  wrhom  I 
encountered  on  my  way  hither,  bemoaned  the  demolition  of  the  old  work, 
which  had  been  pulled  to  pieces  and  made  more  destructive  during  the  Great 
Civil  War.     The  walls  were  originally  of  rough  stone,  little  capable  of  with 
standing  the  projectiles  of  modern  artillery.     There  is  another  fort  on  the 
summit  of  a  rocky  eminence  that  overlooks  the  approach  to  the  Neck,  built 
also  during  the  Rebellion.     When  I  visited  it,  the  earthen  walls  of  one  face 
had  fallen  in  the  ditch,  where  the  remainder  of  the  work  bid  fair,  at  no  dis 
tant  day,  to  follow.     There  is  still  remaining  in  the  town  the  quaint  little 
powder-house  built  in  1755,  with  a  roof  like  the  cup  of  an  acorn. 

Seated  under  the  muzzle  of  one  of  the  big  guns  of  Fort  Sewall  that  point 
ed  seaward,  I  could  descry  Baker's  Isle  with  its  brace  of  lights,  arid  the  nar 
row  strait  through  which  the  Abigail  sailed  in  1628,  with  Endicott  and  the 
founders  of  Salem  on  board.  Two  years  later  the  Arabella  "came  to  an  an 
chor  a  little  within  the  island."  Winthrop  tells  us  how  the  storm-tossed  voy 
agers  went  upon  the  land  at  Cape  Ann,  and  regaled  themselves  with  store  of 


TOUT    SEWALL. 


1  Son  of  Major  Stephen,  of  Xewbury. 


256 


THE  NEW  ENGLAND   COAST. 


strawberries.  Boston  was  settled.  The  little  colony  gave  its  left  hand  to 
Salem,  and  its  right  to  Plymouth.  It  waxed  strong,  and  no  power  has  pre 
vailed  against  it. 

Little  Harbor,  north-west  of  the  fort,  is  the  reputed  site  of  the  first  settle 
ment  at  Marblehead.  On  Gerry's  Isl 
and,  which  lies  close  under  the  shore, 
was  the  house  of  the  first  regularly  or 
dained  minister;  the  cellar  and  pebble- 
paved  yard  were,  not  long  ago,  identi 
fied.  Near  by,  on  the  main-land,  is  the 
supposed  site  of  the  "Fountain  Inn," 
which,  like  the  "Earl  of  Halifax,"  has 
its  romance  of  a  noble  gentleman  taken 
in  the  toils  of  a  pretty  wench/  Sir 
Charles  Frankland,  collector  of  his  Maj 
esty's  customs,  visits  Marblehead,  and 
becomes  enamored  of  the  handmaid  of 
the  inn,  Agnes  Surriage.  He  makes  her 
his  mistress, but  at  length,  having  saved 
his  life  during  the  great  earthquake  at 
Lisbon,  she  receives  the  reward  of  love 
and  heroism  at  the  altar  as  the  baronet's 
wedded  wife.  Arthur  Sandeyn,  who 
was  the  first  publican  in  Marblehead, 
was  allowed  to  keep  an  ordinary  there  in  1640.  The  port  was  fortified  after 
some  fashion  as  early  as  1643-'44. 

I  had  pointed  out  to  me  the  spot  where  the  Constitution  dropped  anchor 
when  chased  in  here  by  two  British  frigates  in  April,  1814.  They  threatened 
for  a  time  to  fetch  her  out  again;  but  as  Stewart  laid  the  old  invincible  with 
her  grim  broadside  to  the  entrance  of  the  port,  and  the  fort  prepared  to  re 
ceive  them  in  a  becoming  manner,  they  prudently  hauled  oft'  The  battle 
between  the  Chesapeake  and  Shannon  was  also  visible  from  the  high  shores 
here,  an  eye-witness,  then  in  a  fishing -boat  off  in  the  bay,  relating  that 
nothing  was  to  be  seen  except  the  two  ships  enveloped  in  a  thick  smoke, 
and  nothing  to  be  heard  but  the  roar  of  the  guns.  When  the  smoke  drifted 
to  leeward,  and  the  cannonade  was  over,  the  British  ensign  was  seen  waving 
above  the  Stars  and  Stripes. 

Poor,  chivalric,  ill-starred  Lawrence !  He  had  given  a  challenge  to  the 
commander  of  the  Bonne  Citoyen,  and  durst  not  decline  one.2  At  the  Shan- 


POWDER-HOUSE,  1755. 


1  See  "  Old  Landmarks  of  Boston,"  pp.  162, 163. 

2  It  has  been  erroneously  stated  that  Bainbridge  accompanied  Lawrence  to  the  pier  and  tried  to 
dissuade  him  from  engaging  the  Shannon.     They  had  not  met  for  several  days. 


MARBLE  HE  AD. 


257 


norfs  invitation,  he  put  to  sea  with  an  unlucky  ship,  and  a  mutinous  crew 
fresh  from  the  grog-shops  and  brothels  of  Ann  Street.  He  besought  them  in 
burning  words  to  show  themselves  worthy  the  name  of  American  sailors. 
They  replied  with  sullen  murmurs.  One  wretch,  a  Portuguese  named  Joseph 
Antonio,  came  forward  as  their  spokesman.  His  appearance  was  singularly 
fantastic.  He  wore  a  checked  shirt,  a  laced  jacket,  rings  in  his  ears,  and  a 
bandana  handkerchief  about  his  head.  Laying  his  hand  on  his  breast,  he 
made  a  profound  inclination  to  his  captain  as  he  said : 

"Pardon  me,  sir,  but  fair  play  be  one  jewel  all  over  the  world,  and  we  no 
touchee  the  specie  for  our  last  cruise  with  Capitaine  Evans.  The  Congress  is 
ver'  munificent ;  they  keep  our  piasters  in  treasury,  and  pay  us  grape  and 
canister.  Good  fashion  in  Portuguee  ship,  when  take  rich  prize  is  not  pay 
poco  apocoy\)ut  break  bulk  and  share  out  dollar  on  drum-head  of  capstan."1 

Already  wounded  in  the  leg,  Lawrence  was  struck  by  a  grape-shot  on  the 
medal  he  wore  in  honor  of  his  former  victory.  His  words,  as  he  was  borne 
from  the  deck,- have  become  a  watchword  in  our  navy.2  Samuel  Livermore, 
of  Boston,  who  accompanied  Lawrence  on  this  cruise  out  of  personal  regard, 
attempted  to  avenge  him.  His  shot  missed  Captain  Broke.  Lawrence  hear 
ing  from  below  the  firing  cease,  sent  his  surgeon  to  tell  his  officers  to  fight  on. 
"The  colors  shall  wave  while  Hive!" 
he  constantly  repeated.  He  was  only 
thirty-four;  sixteen  years  of  his  life 
had  been  passed  in  his  country's  serv 
ice.  His  figure  was  tall  and  com 
manding,  and  in  battle  he  was  the  in 
carnation  of  a  warrior. 

When  Mr.  Croker  read  the  state 
ment  of  the  action  in  the  House  of 
Commons,  the  members  from  all  parts 
interrupted  him  with  loud  and  con 
tinued  cheering.  Perhaps  a  greater 
compliment  to  American  valor  could 
not  have  been  paid  than  this.  The 
capture  of  a  single  ship  of  any  nation 


had  never  before  called  forth  such  a 
triumphant  outburst. 

/  .  *  JAMES  LAWRENCE. 

Ihe  oldest  burial-ground  in  Mar- 

blehead  is  on  the  summit  and  slopes  of  the  highest  of  its  rocky  eminences. 
Here,  also,  the  settlers  raised  the  frame  of  their  primitive  church;  some  part 


1  This  fact  was  established  by  Geoffrey  Crayon  (Washington  Irving)  in  one  of  his  philippics 
against  Great  Britain,  of  which  he  so  slyly  concealed  the  authorship  in  the  preface  to  his  "Sketch 
Book."  2  "Don't  give  up  the  ship." 

17 


258 


THE  NEW  ENGLAND   COAST. 


of  which,  I  was  told,  has  since  been  translated  into  a  more  secular  edifice.  At 
the  nead  of  a  little  pond,  where  a  clump  of  dwarfish  willows  has  become 
rooted,  is  a  sheltered  nook,  in  which  are  the  oldest  stones  now  to  be  seen. 
This  was  probably  the  choice  spot  of  the  whole  field,  but  it  now  wears  the 
same  air  of  neglect  common  to  all  these  old  cemeteries.  A  stone  of  1690 
with  the  name  of  "Mr.  Christopher  Latimore,  about  70  years,"  was  the  oldest 
I  discovered. 

As  I  picked  my  way  among  the  thick-set  head-stones,  for  there  was  no  path, 
and  I  always  avoid  treading  on  a  grave,  I  came  upon  a  grave-digger  busily 
employed,  with  whom  I  held  a  few  moments'  parley.  The  man,  already  up  to 
his  waistband  in  the  pit,  seemed  chiefly  concerned  lest  he  should  not  be  able 
to  go  much  farther  before  coming  to  the  ledge,  which,  even  in  the  hollow 
places,  you  are  sure  of  finding  at  no  great  depth.  On  one  side  of  the  grave 
was  a  heap  of  yellow  mould,  smelling  of  the  earth  earthy,  and  on  the  other 
side  a  lesser  one  of  human  bones,  that  the  spade  had  once  more  brought  above 
iiTound. 


GLIMPSE   OF   THE   SEAMEN'S   MONUMENT   AND   OLD   BURIAL-GROUND. 

After  observing  that  he  should  be  lucky  to  get  down  six  feet,  the  work 
man  told  me  the  grave  was  destined  to  receive  the  remains  of  an  old 
lady  of  ninety-four,  recently  deceased,  who,  as  if  fearful  her  rest  might  be 
less  quiet  in  the  midst  of  a  generation  to  which  she  did  not  belong,  had 
begged  she  might  be  buried  here  among  her  old  friends  and  neighbors.  Al 
though  interments  had  long  been  interdicted  in  the  overcrowded  ground,  her 
prayer  was  granted.  An  examination  of  the  inscriptions  confirmed  what  I 
had  heard  relative  to 'the  longevity  of  the  inhabitants  of  Marblehead,  of  which 
the  grave-digger  also  recounted  more  instances  than  I  am  able  to  remember. 


MARBLEHEAD.  259 

I  asked  him  what  was  done  with  the  bones  I  saw  lying  there,  adding  to 
the  heap  a  fragment  or  two  that  had  fallen  unnoticed  from  his  spade. 

"  Why,  you  see,  I  bury  them  underneath  the  grave  I  am  digging,  before 
the  folks  get  here.  We  often  find  such  bones  on  the  surface,  where  they  have 
been  left  after  tilling  up  a  grave,"  was  his  reply.  This  did  not  appear  sur 
prising,  for  those  I  saw  were  nearly  the  color  of  the  earth  itself.  Seeing  my 
look  directed  with  a  sort  of  fascination  toward  these  relics  of  frail  mortality, 
the  man,  evidently  misconstruing  my  thought,  took  up  an  arm-bone  with  play 
ful  familiarity,  and  observed,  "  You  should  have  seen  the  thigh-bone  I  found 
under  the  old  Episcopal  Church  !  I  could  have  knocked  a  man  down  with 
it  easy.  These,"  he  said,  throwing  the  bone  upon  the  heap,  with  a  gesture  of 
contempt,  "  are  mere  rotten  things."  Who  would  be  put  to  bed  with  that 
man's  shovel ! 

On  a  grassy  knoll,  on  the  brow  of  the  hill,  is  a  marble  monument  erected 
by  the  Marblehead  Charitable  Seamen's  Society,  in  memory  of  its  members 
deceased  on  shore  and  at  sea.  On  one  face  are  the  names  of  those  who  have 
died  on  shore,  and  on  the  east  those  lost  at  sea,  from  the  society's  institution 
in  1831  to  the  year  1848.  On  the  north  are  the  names  of  sixty-five  men  and 
boys  lost  in  the  memorable  gale  of  September  19th,  1846.  This  number  com 
prised  forty-three  heads  of  families ;  as  many  widows,  and  one  hundred  and 
fifty-five  fatherless  children,  were  left  to  mourn  the  fatality. 

The  grave-digger  told  me  that  brave  Captain  Mugford  had  been  buried 
on  this  hill,  but  the  spot  was  now  unknown.  I  could  well  believe  it,  for  nev 
er  had  I  seen  so  many  graves  with  nothing  more  than  a  shapeless  boulder  at 
the  head  and  foot  to  mark  them.  Many  stones  were  broken  and  defaced,  and 
I  saw  the  fragments  of  one  unearthed  while  standing  by.  There  is  no  mate 
rial  so  durable  as  the  old  blue  slate,  whereon  you  may  often  read  an  inscrip 
tion  cut  two  hundred  years  ago,  while  those  on  freestone  and  marble  need 
renewing  every  fifty  years.  General  Glover's  tomb  here  is  inscribed: 

Erected  with  filial  respect 

to 

The  Memory  of 

The  HON.  JOHN  GLOVER.  ESQUIRE, 
Brigadier  General  in  the  late  Continental  Army. 
Died  January  301)1,  1797, 
Aged  64. 

Many  of  the  old  graves  were  covered  with  freshly  springing  "life-everlast 
ing,"  beautifully  symbolizing  the  rest  of  such  as  sleep  in  the  faith.  From  the 
Seamen's  Monument,  at  the  foot  of  which  some  wooden  benches  are  placed, 
is  seen  a  broad  horizon,  dotted  with  white  sails.  I  never  knew  a  sailor  who 
did  not  wish  to  be  buried  as  near  as  possible  to  the  sea,  though  never  in  it. 
"Don't  throw  me  overboard,  Hardy,"  was  Nelson's  dying  request.  There 
are  clumps  of  lone  graves  on  the  verge  of  some  headland  all  over  New  En- 


260 


THE  NEW  ENGLAND  COAST. 


LONE  GRAVES. 


gland,  and  one  old  grave-yard  on  Stage  r- 
Island,  in  Maine,  has  been  wholly  wash-  |g 
ed  away. 

In  allusion  to  the  loss  of  life  caused 
by  disasters  to  the  fishing  fleets  from 
time  to  time,  an  old  man  with  whom 
I  talked  thought  it  was  not  greater 
than  would  occur  through  the  ordina 
ry  chances  of  a  life  on  shore.  It  is 
wonderful  how  a  sea-faring  population 
come  to  associate  the  idea  of  safety 
with  the  sea.  Earthquakes,  confla 
grations,  falling  buildings,  and  like  ac 
cidents  are  more  dreaded  than  hurri 
canes,  squalls,  or  a  lee-shore. 

By  an  estimate  taken  from  the  Essex  Gazette,  of  January  2d,  1770,  it  ap 
pears  that  in  the  two  preceding  years  Marblehead  lost  twenty-three  sail  of 

vessels,  with  their 
crews,  D  umber 
ing  one  hundred 
and  sixty  -  two 
souls,without  tak 
ing  into  account 
those  who  were 
lost  from  vessels 
on  their  return. 
There  were  few 
families  that  did 
not  mourn  a  rela 
tive,  and  some  of 
the  older  inhabit 
ants  remember  to 
have  heard  their 
elders  speak  of  it 
with  a  shudder. 

These  are  the 
annals  that  doubt 
less  suggested 
Miss  Larcom's 
"Hannah  Bind 
ing  Shoes,"  and  the  long,  lingering,  yet  fruitless  watching  for  those  who  nev 
er  come  back.  The  last  shake  of  the  hand,  the  last  kiss,  and  the  last  flashing 
of  the  white  sail  are  much  like  the  farewell  on  the  day  of  battle. 


"SITTING,  STITCHING  IN  A  MOURNFUL  MUSE." 


THE  HOE,  ENGLISH  PLYMOUTH. 


CHAPTER  XVII. 

PLYMOUTH. 

"What  constitutes  a  state? 
Not  high  raised  battlements  or  labored  mound, 
Thick  walls  or  moated  gate." 

PLYMOUTH  is  the  American  Mecca.  It  does  not  contain  the  tomb  of 
the  Prophet,  but  the  Rock  of  the  Forefathers,  their  traditions,  and  their 
graves.  The  first  impressions  of  a  stranger  are  disappointing,  for  the  oldest 
town  in  New  England  looks  as  fresh  as  if  built  within  the  century.  There  is 
not  much  that  is  suggestive  of  the  old  life  to  be  seen  there.  Except  the  hills, 
the  haven,  and  the  sea,  there  is  nothing  antique ;  save  a  few  carefully  cher 
ished  relics,  nothing  that  has  survived  the  day  of  the  Pilgrims. 

Somehow  monuments — and  Plymouth  is  to  be  well  furnished  in  the  future 
— do  not  compensate  for  the  absence  of  living  facts.  The  house  of  William 
Bradford  would  have  been  worth  more  to  me  than  any  of  them.  Even  the 
rusty  iron  pot  and  sword  of  Standish  are  more  satisfying  to  the  common  run 
of  us  than  the  shaft  they  are  building  on  Captain's  Hill  to  his  memory.  They, 


262 


THE   NEW  ENGLAND   COAST. 


at  least,  link  us  to  the  personality  of  the  man. 
so — for  I  had  hoped  otherwise — I  was  obliged 


And  with  a  sigh  that  it  was 
to  admit  that  Old  Plymouth 
had  been  rubbed  out, 
and  that  I  was  too  late 
by  a  century  at  least  to 
realize  my  ideal. 

The  most  impressive 
thing  about  Plymouth 
is  its  quiet ;  though  I 
would  not  have  the 
reader  think  it  deserted. 
There  are  workshops 
and  factories,  but  I  did 
not  suspect  their  vicin 
ity.  Even  the  railway 
train  slips  furtively  in 
and  out,  as  if  its  rum 
bling  might  awaken 
the  slumbering  old  sea 
port.  Although  the 
foundation  of  a  com 
monwealth,  the  town, 
as  we  see,  has  not  be 
come  one  of  the  cen 
tres  of  traffic.  It  has 

A,  Joanna  Davis  House  —  Cole's  Hill;  B,    Plymouth  Rock  and  Wells's  snare^    the  ^  late    of    fea- 

Store;  C,  Uuiversalist  Church ;  D,  First  Church;  E,  Church  of  the  Pil-  lem,  in  having  its   COm- 

grimage;  F,  Post-office— Site  of  Governor  Bradford's  House;  G,  Sam-  mei-cja{  maiTOW  Slicked 
uel  D.  Holmes's  House— Site  of  Common  House  ;  H,  Town  Square ;  /, 

Town-house ;  J,  Court-house  Square.  Ollt  by  a  metropolis     Op- 

1,  Court  Street;  2,  North  Street;  3,  Middle  Street;  4,  Leyden  Street;  5,  ulent,  enlarged,  and  Still 
Main  Street ;  6,  Water  Street ;  7,  Market  Street.  .        .7  ,     '     . 

increasing,    leaving  the 

first-born  of  New  England  nothing  but  her  glorious  past,  and  the  old  fires 
still  burning  on  her  altars. 

Court  Street  is  a  pleasant  and  well-built  thoroughfare.  It  runs  along  the 
base  of  three  of  the  hills  on  whose  slopes  the  town  lies,  taking  at  length  the 
name  of  Main,  which  it  exchanges  again  beyond  the  town  square  for  Market 
Street.  If  you  follow  Court  Street  northwardly,  you  will  find  it  merging  in 
a  country  road  that  will  conduct  you  to  Kingston  ;  if  you  pursue  it  with  your 
face  to  the  south,  you  will  in  due  time  arrive  at  Sandwich.  Trees,  of  which 
there  is  a  variety,  are  the  glory  of  Court  Street.  I  saw  in  some  streets  mag 
nificent  lindens,  horse-chestnuts,  and  elms  branching  quite  across  them;  and 
in  the  areas  such  early  flowering  shrubs  as  forsythia,  spiraea,  pyrus  japonica, 
and  lilac. 


PLYMOUTH. 


263 


Many  houses  are  old,  but  there  are  none  left  of  the  originals;  nor  any  so 
peculiar  as  to  demand  description.  On  some  of  the  most  venerable  the  chim 
neys  are  masterpieces  of  masonry,  showing  curious  designs,  or,  in  some  in 
stances,  a  stack  of  angular  projections.  The  chimney  of  Governor  Bradford's 
house  is  said  to  have  been  furnished  with  a  sun-dial. 


PILGRIM   HALL. 


Pursuing  your  way  along  Court  Street,  you  will  first  reach  Pilgrim  Hall, 
a  structure  of  rough  granite,  in  the  style  of  a  Greek  temple,  the  prevailing 
taste  in  New  England  fifty  years  ago  for  all  public  and  even  for  private 
buildings.  Within  are  collected  many  souvenirs  of  the  Pilgrims,. and  of  the 
tribes  inhabiting  the  Old  Colony.  Lying 
in  the  grass-plot  before  the  hall  is  a  frag 
ment  of  Forefathers'  Rock,  surrounded  by 
a  circular  iron  fence,  and  labeled  in  figures 
occupying  the  larger  part  of  its  surface, 
with  the  date  of  1620.  In  this  place  it  be 
came  nothing  but  a  vulgar  stone.  I  did 
not  feel  my  pulses  at  all  quickened  on  be- 

BKEWSTER'S  CHEST,  AND  STANDISH'S  POT. 
One  end  of  the  hall  is  occupied  by  the 

well-known  painting  of  the  "Landing  of  the  Pilgrims,"  by  Sargent.  To  height 
en  the  effect,  the  artist  has  introduced  an  Indian  in  the  foreground,  an  historic 
anachronism.  A  tall,  soldierly  figure  is  designated  as  Miles  Standish,  who  is 
reported  as  being  short,  and  scarce  manly  in  appearance.  The  canvas  is  of 
large  size,  and  the  grouping  does  not  lack  merit,  but  its  interest  is  made  to 


264 


THE  NEW  ENGLAND   COAST. 


depend  on  the  figures  of  Governor  Carver  and  of  Samoset,  in  the  foreground 
— both  larger  than  life.  We  do  not  recognize,  in  the  crouching  attitude  of 
the  Indian,  the  erect  and  dauntless  Samoset  portrayed  by  Mourt,  Bradford, 
and  Winslow.  This  painting,  which  must  have  cost  the  artist  great  labor, 
was  generously  presented  to  the  Pilgrim  Society.  I  have  seen  a  painting 
of  the  "Landing"  in  which  a  boat  is  represented  approaching  the  shore, 
filled  with  soldiers  in  red  coats.1  The  late  Professor  Morse  also  made  it  the 
subject  of  his  pencil. 


LANDING  OF  THE  PILGRIMS,  FROM  SARGENT' S  PAINTING. 

There  are  on  the  walls  portraits  of  Governor  Edward  Winslow,  Governor 
Josiah  Winslow  and  wife,  and  of  General  John  Winslow,  all  copies  of  origi 
nals  in  the  gallery  of  the  Massachusetts  Historical  Society.  The  original  of 
Edward  Winslow  is  believed  to  be  a  Vandyke.  There  is  also  a  portrait  of 
Hon.  John  Trumbull,  presented  by  Colonel  John,  the  painter.3 


1  In  possession  of  New  England  Historic  Genealogical  Society,  Boston.     It  is  by  Come,  a  ma 
rine  painter  of  some  repute  in  his  day. 

2  Other  portraits  are  of  Dr.  James  Thacher,  by  Frothingham,  and  of  John  Alden,  great-grand 
son  of  John,  of  the  Mayflower,  who  died  at  the  great  age  of  one  hundred  and  two  years.     He  was 
of  Middleborough.     Dr.  Thacher,  a  surgeon  of  the  old  Continental  army,  deserves  more  space  than 
I  am  able  to  give  him.     He  has  embodied  a  great  deal  of  Revolutionary  history,  in  a  very  interest 
ing  way,  in  his  "  Military  Journal,"  having  been  present  at  the  principal  battles. 


PLYMOUTH. 


265 


The  cabinets  contain  many  interesting  memorials  of  the  first  settlers,  their 
arms,  implements,  household  furniture,  and  apparel.     I  refer  the  reader  to  the 


CARVER'S   CHAIK. 


BREWSTEK'S  CHAIR. 


MINCING  KNIFE. 


guide-books  for  an  enumeration  of  them.  The  chairs  of  Governor  Carver  and 
of  Elder  Brewster  are  good  specimens  of  the  uncomfortable  yet  quaint  fur 
nishing  of  their  time;  as  the  capacious  iron  pots,  pewter 
platters,  and  wooden  trenchers  are  suggestive  of  a  primi 
tive  people,  whose  town  was  a  camp.  I  fancy  there  were 
few  breakages  among  the  dishes  of  these  Pilgrims,  for  they 
were  as  hard  as  their  owners;  nor  wrere  there  serious  de 
ductions  to  be  made  from  the  maids'  wages  on  the  day  of 
reckoning.  I  confess  I  should  have  liked  to  see  here,  in 
stead  of  the  somewhat  confusing  jumble  of  articles  pertaining  to  Pilgrim  or 

Indian,  an  apartment  exclusively  de 
voted  to  the  household  economy  of 
the  first- comers,  with  furniture  suita 
bly  arranged,  and  the  evidences  of 
their  frugal  housewifery  garnishing  the 
walls. 

Many  of  the  articles  said  to  have 
been  brought  over  in  the  Mayflower 
are  doubtless  authentic,  but  the  num 
ber  of  objects  still  existing  and  claim 
ing  some  part  of  the  immortality  of 
that  little  bark  would  freight  an  India- 

£3 

man  of  good  tonnage.  There  is  a  still  pretty  sampler,  embroidered  by  the 
spider  fingers  of  a  Puritan  maiden,  with  a  sentiment  worth  the  copying  by 
any  fair  damsel  in  the  land : 


PEREGRINE  WHITE'S  CABINET. 


266 


THE   NEW  ENGLAND   COAST. 


"Lorea  Standish  is  my  name. 
Lord,  guide  my  hart  that  I  may  doe  thy  will ; 
Also  fill  my  hands  with  such  convenient  skill 
As  may  conduce  to  virtue  void  of  shame ; 
And  I  will  give  the  glory  to  thy  name." 

And  here  is  the  carnal  weapon  of  Miles  Standish,  the  living  sword-blade 
of  the  colony.  It  lacks  not  much  of  an  English  ell  from 
hilt  to  point,  and  looks  still  able  to  push  its  way  in  the 
world  if  well  grasped.  The  weapon  has  a  brass  cross  and 
guard,  and  resembles  those  trenchant  Florentine  blades 
of  .the  sixteenth  century,  with  its  channels,  curved  point, 
and  fine  temper.  The  sword  figures  in  Mr.  Longfellow's 
"Courtship  of  Miles  Standish,"  where  we  may  hear  it 
clank  at  the  captain's  heels  as  he  goes  from  his  wrathful 
interview  with  John  Alden,  slamming  the  door  after  him, 
no  doubt,  like  the  tempestuous  little  tea-pot  he  was.  The 
inscription  on  the  blade  has  baffled  the  savans.  For  such 
a  hot-tempered  captain  it  should  have  been  that  engraved 
on  the  Earl  of  Shrewsbury's  sword, 

"I  am  Talbot's,  for  to  slay  his  foes." 

It  could  hardly  have  been  this  legend,  with  a  point 
inscribed  on  a  broadsword  of  the  seventeenth  century: 

' '  Qui  gladio  ferit 
Gladio  perit." 

Speaking  of  swords,  I  am  reminded  that  the  first  duel 
in  New  England  was  at  Plymouth,  in  the  year  1621.  It 
was  between  Edward  Doty  or  Doten,  and  Edward  Leister, 
servants  of  Steven  Hopkins.  They  fought  with  sword  and  dagger,  like  their 
betters,  and  were  both  wounded.  Having  no  statute  against  the  offense,  the 
Pilgrims  met  in  council  to  determine  on  the  punishment.  It  was  exemplary. 
The  parties  were  ordered  to  be  tied  together,  hand  and  foot,  and  to  remain 
twenty-four  hours  without  food  or  drink.  The  intercession  of  their  master 
and  their  own  entreaties  procured  their  release  before  the  sentence  was  car 
ried  out. 

In  the  front  of  the  court-house  is  a  mural  tablet,  with  the  seal  of  the  Old 
Colony  sculptured  in  relief.  The  quarterings  of  the  shield  represent  four 
kneeling  figures,  having  each  a  flaming  heart  in  its  hands.  On  one  side  of 
the  figures  is  a  small  tree,  indicative,  I  suppose,  of  the  infant  growth  of  the 
plantation.  The  attitude  and  semi-nude  appearance  indicate  an  Indian,  the 
subsequent  device  of  Massachusetts,  and  are  at  once  significant  of  his  sub 
jection,  hearty  welcome,  and  ultimate  loyalty.  The  colony  seal  is  said  to 


STANDISH' S   SWORD. 


PLYMOUTH. 


267 


have  been  abstracted  from  the  archives  in  Andres's  time,  and  never  recovered.1 
Its  legend  was  "Plimovth  Nov-Anglia,  Sigillvm  Societatis,"  with  the  date  of 
1620  above  the  shield.  The  union  with  Mas 
sachusetts,  in  1692,  dispensed  with  the  neces 
sity  for  a  separate  seal. 

I  saw,  in  the  office  of  the  Register,  the 
records  of  the  First  Church  of  Plymouth, 
begun  and  continued  by  Nathaniel  Morton 
to  1680.  The  court  records,  as  well  as  the 
ancient  charter,  on  which  the  ink  is  so 
faded  as  to  be  scarcely  legible,  are  careful 
ly  kept. 

But  the  compact,  that  august  instru 
ment,  I  did  not  see,  nor  is  the  fate  of  the 
original  known.  Its  language  bears  an  ex-  THE  OLD  COLONY  SEAL. 

traordinary  similitude  to  the  preamble  of  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States,  in  its  spirit  and  idea.  The  name  of  the  king  is  there  in  good  set 
phrase ;  but  the  soul  of  the  thing  is  its  assumption  of  sovereignty  in  the 
people.  See  now  how  King  James  figures  at  the  head  and  the  tail  of  it,  and 
then  look  into  the  heart  of  the  matter : 

"In  ye  name  of  God,  Amen.  We  whose  names  are  underwritten,  the  loyall  subjects  of  our 
dread  soveraigne  Lord,  King  James,  by  ye  grace  of  God,  of  Great  Britaine,  Franc,  &  Ireland,  King, 
defender  of  ye  faith,  &c.,  haveing  undertaken,  for  ye  glorie  of  God  and  advancemente  of  ye  Chris 
tian  faith  and  honour  of  our  king  &  countrie,  a  voyage  to  plant  ye  first  colonie  in  ye  Northerne 
parts  of  Virginia,  doe  by  these  presents  solemnly  &  mutualy  in  ye  presence  of  God,  and  one  of  an 
other,  covenant  and  combine  our  selves  togeather  in  a  civill  body  politick,  for  our  better  ordering 
&  preservation  &  furtherance  of  ye  ends  aforesaid;  and  by  vertue  hearof  to  enacte,  constitute,  and 
frame  such  just  &  equall  lawes,  ordinances,  acts,  constitutions  &  offices,  from  time  to  time,  as  shall 
be  thought  most  meete  &  convenent  for  ye  generall  good  of  ye  Colonie,  unto  which  we  promise  all 
due  submission  and  obedience.  In  witnes  wherof  we  have  hereunder  subscribed  our  names  at 
Cap-Codd  ye  11  of  November,  in  ye  year  of  ye  raigne  of  our  soveraigne  lord,  King  James  of  En 
gland,  Franc,  &  Ireland  ye  eighteenth  &  of  Scotland  ye  fiftie  fourth,  An0:  Dom.  1G20." 

Bradford  says  the  bond  was  partly  due  to  the  mutinous  spirit  of  some  of 
the  strangers  on  board  the  Mayflower,  and  partly  to  the  belief  that  such  an 
act  might  be  as  firm  as  any  patent,  and  in  some  respects  more  sure.  It  is 
impossible  not  to  be  interested  in  the  lives  of  such  men ;  they  were  deeply  in 
earnest. 

In  1630  the  first  public  execution  took  place  in  Plymouth.  The  culprit 
was  John  Billington,  who,  as  Bradford  wrote  home  to  England,  was  a  knave, 
and  so  would  live  and  die.  Billington  had  waylaid  and  shot  one  of  the  town,2 
and  was  adjudged  guilty  of  murder.  The  colony  patent  could  not  confer  a 
power  it  did  not  itself  possess  to  inflict  the  death  penalty,  so  they  took  coun- 


1  "Pilgrim  Memorial." 


3  John  Ne\vcomen. 


268  THE  NEW  ENGLAND  COAST. 

sel  of  their  friends  just  come  into  Massachusetts  Bay,  and  were  advised  to 
"  Purge  the  land  of  blood." 

In  1658,  the  crime  of  adultery  appears  to  be  first  noticed  in  the  laws. 
The  punishment  of  this  offense  was  two  whippings,  the  persons  convicted  to 
wear  two  capital  letters  "A.  D."  cut  in  cloth  and  sewed  on  their  uppermost 
garment,  on  their  arm  or  back ;  if  they  removed  the  letters,  they  were  again 
to  be  publicly  whipped.  Another  law,  that  would  bear  rather  hardly  on  the 
present  generation,  was  as  follows :  Any  persons  "  who  behaved  themselves 
profanely  by  being  without  doors  at  the  meeting-houses  on  the  Lord's  day, 
in  time  of  exercise,  and  there  misdemeaning  themselves  byjestings,  sleepings, 
or  the  like,"  were  first  to  be  admonished,  and  if  they  did  not  refrain,  set  in  the 
stocks ;  and  if  still  unreclaimed,  cited  before  the  court. 

Josselyn,  writing  of  the  old  "Body  of  Laws  of  ,1646,"  says,  "Scolds  they 
gag  and  set  them  at  their  doors  for  certain  hours,  for  all  comers  and  goers  by 
to  gaze  at."  And  here  is  material  for  the  "Scarlet  Letter:"  "An  English 
woman  suffering  an  Indian  to  have  carnal  knowledge  of  her  was  obliged  to 
wear  an  Indian  cut  out  of  red  cloth  sewed  upon  her  right  arm,  and  worn 
twelve  months."  Swearing  was  punished  by  boring  through  the  tongue  with 
a  hot  iron;  adultery  with  death. 

The  chronicles  of  the  Pilgrims  have  undergone  many  strange  vicissitudes, 
but  are  fortunately  quite  full  and  complete.  It  would  be  pleasant  to  know 
more  of  their  lives  during  their  first  year  at  Plymouth  than  is  given  by  Brad 
ford  or  Morton.  Governor  Bradford's  manuscript  history  of  Plymouth  plan 
tation  was  probably  purloined  form  the  New  England  Library  deposited  in 
the  Old  South  Church  of  Boston,  during  the  siege  of  1775.  It  found  its  way 
to  the  Fulham  Library  in  England,  was  discovered,  and  a  copy  made  which 
has  since  been  printed,  after  remaining  in  manuscript  more  than  two  hundred 
years.  The  letter-book  of  Governor  Bradford  has  a  similar  history.  It  was 
rescued  from  a  grocer's  shop  in  Halifax,  after  the  destruction  of  half  its  in 
valuable  contents. 

The  next  best  thing  to  be  done  is  probably  to  go  at  once  to  the  top  of 
Burial  Hill,  which  is  here  what  the  Hoe  is  to  English  Plymouth.  Here,  at 
least,  are  plenty  of  memorials  of  the  Pilgrims,  and  here  town  and  harbor  are 
outspread  for  perusal.  Seen  at  full  tide,  the  harbor  appears  a  goodly  port 
enough,  but  it  is  left  as  bare  by  the  ebb  as  if  the  sea  had  been  commanded 
to  remove  and  become  dry  land.  Nothing  except  a  broad  expanse  of  sand 
bars  and  mussel  shoals,  with  luxuriant  growth  of  eel-grass,  meets  the  eye. 
Through  these  a  narrow  and  devious  channel  makes  its  way.  The  bay,  how 
ever,  could  not  be  called  tame  with  two  such  landmarks  as  Captain's  Hill 
on  Duxbury  side,  and  the  promontory  of  Manomet  on  the  shoulder  of  the 
Cape. 

Plymouth  Bay  is  formed  by  the  jutting-out  of  Manomet  on  the  south,  and 
by  the  long-attenuated  strip  of  sand  known  as  Duxbury  Beach,  on  the  north. 


PLYMOUTH. 


269 


This  beach  terminates  in  a 
smaller  pattern  of  the  cel 
ebrated  Italian  boot  that 
looks  equally  ready  to  play 
at  foot -ball  with  Sicily  or 
to  kick  intruders  out  of  the 
Mediterranean.  The  heel  of 
the  boot  is  toward  the  sea, 
and  called  The  Gurnet ;  the 
toe  points  landward,  and  is 
called  Saquish  Head.  Just 
within  the  toe  of  the  boot 
is  Clark's  Island,  named  from 
the  master's  mate  of  the 
Mayflower;  then  comes  Cap 
tain's  Hill,  making,  with  the 
beach,  Duxbury  Harbor; 
and  in  the  farthest  reach 
of  the  bay  to  the  westward 
is  Kingston,  \vhere  a  little 
water-course,  called  after  the 
master  of  the  Mayflower^ 
makes  up  into  the  land.  In 
the  southern  board  Cape 
Cod  is  seen  on  a  clear  day 
far  out  at  sea;  a  mere  shining  streak  of  white  sand  it  appears  at  this  distance. 

Plymouth  harbor  proper  is  formed  by  a  long  sand-spit  parallel  with  the 
shore,  that  serves  as  a  breakwater  for  the  shallow  roadstead.  It  is  anchored 
wrhere  it  is,  for  the  winds  would  blow  it  away  else,  by  \vooden  cribs  on  which 
the  drifting  sands  are  mounded ;  and  it  is  also  tethered  by  beach-grass  root 
ed  in  the  hillocks  or  downs  that  fringe  the  harbor-side.  Now  and  then  ex 
tensive  repairs  are  necessary  to  make  good  the  ravages  of  a  winter's  sea-lash 
ings,  as  many  as  six  hundred  tons  of  stone  having  been  added  to  the  break 
water  at  the  Point  at  one  time.  Brush  is  placed  in  the  jetties,  and  thousands 
of  roots  of  beach-grass  are  planted  to  catch  and  stay  the  shifting  sands.  The 
harbor  is  lighted  at  evening  by  twin  lights  on  the  Gurnet,  and  by  a  single 
one  off  Plymouth  Beach.  The  latter  is  a  caisson  of  iron  rooted  to  the  rock 
by  a  filling  of  concrete,  and  is  washed  on  all  sides  by  the  waters  of  the  harbor. 

Sand  is  everywhere;  the  "stern  and  rock-bound  coast"  of  Mrs.  Hemans 
nowhere.  Except  one  little  cluster  by  the  northern  shore  of  the  harbor,  the 
Forefathers'  is  the  only  rock  on  which  those  pious  men  could  have  landed 


ftp  of 

PLYMOUTH 

BAT 

1    Sca7eS^  Miles 


MAP   OF   PLYMOUTH   BAY. 


Jones's  River. 


270  THE  NEW  ENGLAND   COAST. 

with  dry  feet.  A  few  boulders,  noticeably  infrequent,  are  scattered  along  the 
beach  as  you  approach  from  Kingston.  The  hills  on  which  the  town  is  built 
appear  lean  and  emaciated,  as  if  the  light  yellow  earth  with  which  they  are 
furnished  were  a  compromise  between  sand  and  soil.  The  gardens  and  house- 
plots,  nevertheless,  thrive  if  they  have  moisture  enough.  Few  vessels  were 
lying  in  the  harbor,  for  Plymouth  has  at  present  little  or  no  commerce ;  yet 
of  these,  two  small  colliers  were  larger  than  the  little  Mayflower  that  car 
ried  a  greater  than  Caesar  and  his  fortunes.1 

The  Pilgrims  brought  the  name  of  their  settlement  along  with  them, 
though  Captain  John  Smith  gives  it  first  the  Indian  name  of  Accomack, 
changed  by  Prince  Charles  to  Plimouth,  as  it  appears  on  the  map  accom 
panying  "Advertisements  for  the  Unexperienced."  The  port  was,  however, 
earlier  known  to  both  French  and  English.  Sarnoset  told  the  Pilgrims,  at 
his  first  interview  with  them,  the  Indian  name  was  Patuxet.2  Prince,  in 
deed,  assigns  a  date  (December  31st)  for  the  formal  assumption  of  the  En 
glish  name.3 

Plymouth,  England,  from  which  the  Pilgrims  finally  set  sail  on  the  6th  of 
September,  1619,  is  situated  at  the  extreme  north-west  corner  of  Devonshire, 
and  is  divided  from  Cornwall  only  by  the  river  Tarnar.  The  name  has  no 
other  significance  than  the  mouth  of  the  river  Plym.  Exmouth  and  Dart 
mouth  have  the  like  derivation.  Plymouth  was  long  the  residence  of  Sir 
Francis  Drake,  and  was  the  birthplace  of  Sir  John  Hawkins;  also  of  the  paint 
ers  Northcote,  Prout,  and  B.  Haydon.  Captain  John  Davis,  the  intrepid  nav 
igator,  and  Sir  Humphrey  Gilbert,  who,  Queen  Elizabeth  said,  was  a  "  man  of 
noe  good  happ  by  sea,"  were  also  of  Devonshire.  It  is  of  the  two  rivers  upon 
which  the  "  Three  Towns  "  stand  that  old  Michael  Drayton  writes : 

"Plym  that  claims  by  right 
The  christening  of  that  Bay,  which  bears  her  noble  name." 

In  spite  of  historic  antecedents,  English  Plymouth  was  distasteful  to  Lord 
Nelson,  who  says,  in  one  of  his  letters  to  Lady  Hamilton,  "I  hate  Plymouth." 
American  Plymouth  should  owe  no  grudge  to  his  memory,  for  he  did  a  very 
noble  act  to  one  of  her  townsmen.  While  cruising  on  our  coast  in  the  Albe- 
marle,  in  1782,  Nelson  captured  a  fishing  schooner  belonging  to  Plymouth. 
The  cargo  of  the  vessel  constituted  nearly  the  whole  property  of  Captain 
Carver,  the  master,  who  had  a  large  family  at  home  anxiously  awaiting  his 
return.  There  being  no  officer  on  board  the  Albemarle  acquainted  with  Boston 
Bay,  Nelson  ordered  the  master  of  the  prize  to  act  as  pilot.  He  performed 
the  service  to  the  satisfaction  of  his  captor,  who  requited  him  by  giving  him 
his  vessel  and  cargo  back  again,  with  a  certificate  to  prevent  recapture  by 

1  The  Mayflower  was  only  one  hundred  and  eighty  tons  burden.  2  Mourt. 

3  I  do  not  find  any  exact  authority  for  this. 


PLYMOUTH.  271 

other  British  cruisers.  Sir  N.  Harris  Nicolas  relates  that  Nelson  accompanied 
this  generous  act  with  words  equally  generous :  "  You  have  rendered  me, 
sir,  a  very  essential  service,  and  it  is  not  the  custom  of  English  seamen  to  be 
ungrateful.  In  the  name,  therefore,  and  with  the  approbation  of  the  officers 
of  this  ship,  I  return  your  schooner,  and  with  it  this  certificate  of  your  good 
conduct.1  Farewell!  and  may  God  bless  you." 

The  choice  of  the  site  of  Plymouth  by  the  Pilgrims  was  due  rather  to  the 
pressing  necessities  of  their  situation  than  to  a  well-considered  determination. 
Arriving  on  our  coast  in  the  beginning  of  winter,  after  nearly  six  weeks  passed 
in  explorations  that  enfeebled  the  hardiest  among  them,  they  found  their  pro 
visions  failing,  while  the  increasing  rigor  of  the  season  called  for  a  speedy 
decision.  As  it  was  not  their  destination,  so  it  may  readily  be  conceived  they 
were  not  prepared  beforehand  with  such  knowledge  of  the  coast  as  might 
now  be  most  serviceable  to  them.  Cheated  by  their  captain,  they  had  thrown 
away  the  valuable  time  spent  in  searching  the  barren  cape  for  a  harbor  fit 
for  settlement.  Smith,  in  his  egotism,  administers  a  rebuke  to  them  in  this 
wise : 

"  Yet  at  the  first  landing  at  Cape  Cod,  being  an  hundred  passengers,  be 
sides  twenty  they  had  left  behind  at  Plimouth  for  want  of  good  take  heed, 
thinking  to  find  all  tilings  better  than  I  advised  them,  spent  six  or  seven  weeks 
in  wandering  up  and  downe  in  frost  and  snow,  wind  and  raine,  among  the 
woods,  cricks,  and  swamps,  forty  of  them  died,  and  three-score  were  left  in  a 
most  miserable  estate  at  New  Plimouth,  where  their  ship  left  them,  and  but 
nine  leagues  by  sea  from  where  they  landed,  whose  misery  and  variable  opin 
ions,  for  want  of  experience,  occasioned  much  faction,  till  necessity  agreed 
them." 

It  is  not  easily  understood  why  they  should  have  remained  in  so  unprom 
ising  a  location  after  a  better  knowledge  of  the  country  had  been  obtained. 
To  the  north  was  Massachusetts,  called  by  Smith  "  the  paradise  of  those 
parts."  South-west  of  them  was  the  fertile  Narraganset  country,  with  fair 
Aquidneck  within  their  patent.  In  thirteen  or  fourteen  years  the  whole  of 
Plymouth  colony  would  not  have  made  one  populous  town.  But  there  are 
indications  that  a  removal  was  kept  in  view.  Their  brethren  in  Leyden, 
who  saw  the  hand  of  God  in  their  first  choice,  advised  them  not  to  abandon 
it.  In  1633  they  established  a  trading-house  on  the  Connecticut,  and  when 
afterward  dispossessed  by  Massachusetts,  alleged  as  a  reason  for  holding  a 
post  there  that  "they  lived  upon  a  barren  place,  where  they  were  by  necessi 
ty  cast,  and  neither  they  nor  theirs  could  long  continue  upon  the  same,  and 
why  should  they  be  deprived  of  that  which  they  had  provided  and  intended 

1  "This  is  to  certify  that  I  took  the  schooner  Harmony,  Nathaniel  Carver,  master,  belonging  to 
Plymouth,  but,  on  account  of  his  good  services,  have  given  him  up  his  vessel  again. 

"HORATIO  NELSON. 

"Dated  on  board  H. M.  ship  Albemarle,  17th  August,  1782." 


272  THE  NEW  ENGLAND   COAST. 

to  remove  to  as  soon  as  they  were  able  ?'n     Yet,  like  fatalists  they  continued 
on  the  very  shores  to  which  Providence  had  directed  them. 

When  the  Pilgrims  explored  the  bay,  they  were  at  first  undetermined 
whether  to  make  choice  of  Clark's  Island,  the  shores  of  the  little  river  at 
Kingston,  or  the  spot  on  the  main-land  which  became  their  ultimate  abode. 
The  high  ground  of  Plymouth  shore,  the  "sweete  brooke"  under  the  hill-side, 
and  the  large  tract  of  land  ready  cleared  for  their  use,  settled  the  question ; 
the  high  hill  from  which  they  might  see  Cape  Cod,  and  withal  very  fit  for  a 
citadel,  clenched  their  decision. 

It  did  not  seem  to  occur  to  the  Pilgrims  that  to  pitch  their  residence  in  a 
place  desolated  by  the  visitation  of  God  was  at  all  ill-omened.  In  their  cir 
cuit  of  the  bay  they  did  not  see  an  Indian  or  an  Indian  wigwam,  though  they 
met  with  traces  of  a  former  habitation.  Added  to  the  sadness  and  gloom  of 
the  landscape,  the  frozen  earth,  the  bare  and  leafless  trees,  was  a  silence  not 
alone  of  nature,  but  of  death.  The  plague  had  cleared  the  way  for  them ; 
they  built  upon  graves. 

This  terrible  forerunner  of  the  English  is  alluded  to  by  several  of  the  old 
writers.  It  swept  the  coast  from  the  Fresh  Water  River  to  the  Penobscot, 
with  a  destructiveness  like  to  that  witnessed  in  London  a  few  years  later. 
Sir  F.  Gorges  tells  us  that  the  Indians  inhabiting  the  region  round  about  the 
embouchure  of  the  Saco  were  sorely  afflicted  with  it,  "  so  that  the  country  was 
in  a  manner  left  void  of  inhabitants."  Vines,  Sir  Ferdinando's  agent,  with  his 
companions,  slept  in  the  cabins  with  those  that  died ;  but,  to  their  good  for 
tune,  as  the  narrative  quaintly  sets  forth,  "  not  one  of  them  ever  felt  their 
heads  to  ache  while  they  stayed  there."  This  was  in  the  year  1616-'17. 
Levett  says  the  Indians  at  "Aquamenticus"  were  all  dead  when  he  was  there. 
Samoset  explains,  in  his  broken  English,  to  the  Pilgrims  that  the  lawful  occu 
pants  of  Patuxet  had,  four  years  before,  been  swept  away  by  an  extraordi 
nary  plague.  The  Indians  had  never  seen  or  heard  of  the  disease  before. 
Villages  withered  away  when  the  blight  fell  upon  them  ;  tribes  were  obliter 
ated, -and  nations  were  reduced  to  tribes.  Doubtless,  this  disaster  had  much 
to  do  with  the  peaceable  settlement  of  Plymouth,  Salem,  and  Boston.  Had 
the  Pilgrims  been  everywhere  resisted,  as  at  Nauset,  they  could  hardly  have 
planted  their  colony  in  Plymouth  Bay. 

There  was  another  cause  to  which  the  English  owed  their  safety,  as  related 
to  them  by  many  aged  Indians.  A  French  ship  had  been  cast  away  on  Cape 
Cod.  The  crew  succeeded  in  landing,  but  the  Indians,  less  merciful  than  the 
sea,  butchered  all  but  three  of  them.  Two  were  ransomed  by  Dermer,  one 
of  Sir  F.  Gorges's  captains.  The  other  remained  with  the  savages,  acquired 
their  language,  and  died  among  them.  Before  his  death  he  foretold  that  God 
Avas  angry,  and  would  destroy  them,  and  give  their  heritage  to  a  strange  peo- 

1  Governor  Bradford's  "History  of  Plymouth." 


PLYMOUTH.  273 

pie.  They  derided  him,  and  answered  boastfully,  they  were  so  strong  and  nu 
merous  that  the  Manitou  could  not  kill  them  all.  Soon  after  the  pestilence  de 
populated  the  country.  Then  came  the  Englishmen  in  their  ships.  The  sav 
ages  assembled  in  a  dark  swamp,  where  their  conjurors,  with  incantations  last 
ing  several  days,  solemnly  cursed  the  pale-faces,  devoting  them  to  destruction. 
Thus  the  English  found  safety  in  the  superstitious  awe  of  the  natives.  The 
story  of  the  terrible  plague  is  as  yet  unwritten.  Governor  Bradford  says 
that  when  Winslow  went  to  confer  with  Massasoit,  he  passed  by  numbers  of 
unburied  skulls  and  bones  of  those  who  had  died. 

Captain  Levett  is  corroborative  of  the  Pilgrims'  settled  intention  to  de 
part  from  their  original  place  of  settlement.  He  observes  in  his  "  Voyage 
into  New  England  :"  "  Neither  was  I  at  New  Plymouth,  but  I  fear  that  place 
is  not  so  good  as  many  others ;  for  if  it  were,  in  my  conceit,  they  would  con 
tent  themselves  with  it,* and  not  seek  for  any  other,  having  ten  times  so  much 
ground  as  would  serve  ten  times  so  many  people  as  they  have  now  among 
them.  But  it  seems  they  have  no  fish  to  make  benefit  of;  for  this  year  they 
had  one  ship  fish  at  Pemaquid,  and  another  at  Cape  Ann,  where  they  have  be 
gun  a  new  plantation,  but  how  long  it  will  continue  I  know  not." 

It  is  evident  from  the  testimony  that  the  settlement  at  Plymouth  was  ill- 
considered,  and  that  the  Pilgrims  were  themselves  far  from  satisfied  with  it. 
In  this,  too,  we  have  the  solution  of  the  rapid  overshadowing  of  the  Old  Col 
ony  by  its  neighbors,  and  the  fading  away  of  its  political  and  commercial  im 
portance. 

There  is  no  manner  of  doubt  that  Plymouth  had  been  visited  by  whites 
long  before  the  advent  of  the  Mayflowers  band.  Hutchinson  erroneously 
says  De  Monts  "did  not  go  into  the  Massachusetts  bay,  but  struck  over  from 
some  part  of  the  eastern  shore  to  Cape  Ann,  and  so  to  Cape  Cod,  and  sailed 
farther  southward."  Definite  is  this! 

It  was  the  object  of  De  Monts  to  examine  the  coast,  and  his  pilot  seems 
to  have  kept  in  with  it  as  closely  as  possible,  making  a  harbor  every  night 
where  one  was  to  be  found.  The  Indian  pilot  proved  to  have  little  knowl 
edge  of  the  shores  or  of  the  language  of  the  tribes  to  the  westward  of  the 
Saco;  for  on  being  confronted  with  the  natives  of  the  Massachusetts  country, 
he  was  not  able  to  understand  them.  Gorges  recounts  that  his  natives  from 
Pemaquid  and  from  Martha's  Vineyard  at  first  hardly  comprehended  each 
other. 

Hutchinson,  it  is  probable,  saw  the  edition  of  "Champlain's  Voyages"  of 
1632,  contenting  himself  with  a  cursory  examination  of  it.  An  attentive 
reading  of  the  text  of  the  edition  of  1613  would  have  undeceived  him  as  to 
the  movements  of  De  Monts.  Although  the  reprint  of  1632  gives  the  sub 
stance  of  the  voyage,  it  is  so  mutilated  in  its  details  as  to  afford  scanty  satis 
faction  to  the  student. 

After  leaving  Cape  Ann,  De  Monts  entered  Boston  Bay  and  saw  Charles 

18 


274 


THE   NEW  ENGLAND   COAST. 


River,  named  by  his  company  "Riviere  da  Gas,"  in  compliment  to  their  chief. 
From  thence  they  continued  their  route  to  a  place  that  has  for  the  moment  a 
greater  interest.  Given  the  latitude,  the  physical  features,  and  the  distance 
from  Cape  Ann,  we  are  at  no  loss  to  put  the  finger  on  Plymouth  Bay,  of 
which  the  geographer  of  the  expedition  is  the  first  to  give  us  a  description. 

The  wind  coming  contrary,  they  dropped  anchor  in  a  little  roadstead.1 
While  lying  there  they  were  boarded  by  canoes  that  had  been  out  fishing  for 
cod.  These,  going  to  shore,  notified  their  companions,  who  assembled  on  the 
sands,  dancing  and  gesticulating  in  token  of  amity  and  welcome.  A  canoe 
from  the  bark  landed  with  a  few  trifles  with  which  the  simple  natives  were 
well  pleased,  and  begged  their  strange  visitors  to  come  and  visit  them  with 
in  their  river.  The  man-stealers  had  not  yet  been  among  them.  They  offer 
ed  a  simple. but  sincere  hospitality. 


CHAMPLAIN'S  MAP.— PORT  CAPE  ST.  LOUIS. 

Let  us  have  recourse  to  the  musty  pages  and  antiquated  French  of  Cham- 
plain,  following  in  the  wake  of  the  bark  as  it  weathers  the  Gurnet,  and  dou 
bles  Saquish,  with  the  cheery  cry  of  the  leadsman,  and  the  eyes  of  De  Monts, 
Champlain,  and  Champdore  fixed  on  the  shores  of  coming  renown : 

"  Nous  levames  1'ancre  pour  ce  faire,  mais  nous  n'y  peusmes  entrer  a  cause  du  pen  d'eau  que 
nous  y  trouvames  estans  de  basse  mer  et  fumes  contrainctes  de  mouiller  1'ancre  a  1'entree 
d'icelle.  Je  decendis  a  terre  ou  j'eu  vis  quantite  d'autres  qui  nous  re$eurent  fort  gratieusement : 
et  fus  recognoistre  la  riviere,  ou  n'y  a  vey  autre  chose  qu'un  bras  d'eau  qui  s'estant  quelque  peu 

1  Green's  Harbor,  perhaps. 


PLYMOUTH.  275 

dans  les  terres  qui  font  en  partie  desertees :  dedans  lequel  il  n'y  a  qu'un  ruisseau  qui  ne  peut 
porter  basteaux  sinon  de  pleine  mer.  Ce  lieu  peut  avoir  une  lieue  de  circuit.  En  1'une  des  en 
trees  duquel  y  a  une  maniere  d'icelle  couverte  de  bois  et  principalement  de  pins  qui  tient  d'un 
coste  a  des  dunes  de  sable,  qui  font  assez  longues  :  1'autre  coste  est  une  terre  assez  haute.  II  y 
a  deux  islets  dans  lad.  Baye,  qu'on  ne  voit  point  si  Ton  n'est  dedans,  ou  autour  la  mer  asseche 
presque  toute  de  basse  mer.  Ce  lieu  est  fort  remarquable  de  la  mer ;  d'autant  que  la  coste  est 
fort  basse,  hormis  le  cap  de  1'entree  de  la  Baye  qu'avons  nomme  le  port  du  cap  St.  Louys  distant 
dud.  cap  deux  lieues  et  dix  du  Cap  aux  Isles.  II  est  environ  par  le  hauteur  du  Cap  St.  Louys." 

TRANSLATION.  * 

We  raised  the  anchor  to  do  this,  but  we  could  not  enter  therein  by  reason  of  the  little  water 
which  we  found  there,  being  low  sea,  and  were  constrained  to  let  go  the  anchor  at  the  entrance  of 
it.  I  went  ashore,  where  I  saw  numbers  of  natives  who  received  us  very  graciously,  and  surveyed 
the  river,  which  is  nothing  more  than  an  arm  of  water  that  makes  a  little  way  in  the  lands  which 
are  in  part  deserted,  within  which  it  is  only  a  rivulet  that  can  not  float  vessels  except  at  full  sea. 
This  place  may  be  a  league  in  circuit.  At  one  of  the  entrances  is  a  sort  of  island,  which  is  covered 
with  wood,  principally  pines,  which  holds  to  a  coast  of  sandy  downs  of  some  length ;  the  other 
shore  is  prettv  high  land.  There  are  two  isles  in  the  said  Bay  which  are  not  perceived  until  you 
are  within,  which  the  sea  leaves  almost  entirely  at  low  tide.  This  place  is  very  remarkable  from 
the  sea,  inasmuch  as  the  coast  is  very  low,  except  the  cape  at  the  entrance  of  the  Bay,  which  we 
have  named  Port  Cape  St.  Louis,  distant  from  the  said  Cape  two  leagues,  and  ten  from  the  Cape 
of  Islands.  It  is  about  the  latitude  of  Cape  St.  Louis.2 

In  this  description  the  Gurnet  and  Manomet  stand  out  for  easy  recogni 
tion.  The  sandy  downs  of  Duxbury  Beach,  the  shallow  harbor,  the  river, 
even  the  soundings  establish  the  identity  of  Port  St.  Louis  with  Plymouth; 
and  the  two  islands  become  further  evidence,  if  more  were  needed. 

To  account  for  the  hostility  of  the  Indians  inhabiting  the  Cape  when  the 
Pilgrims  were  reconnoitring  there,  it  is  only  necessary  to  cite  a  few  facts. 
Cabot  stole  three  savages  and  carried  them  to  England,  where,  says  Stow, 
in  ludicrous  astonishment,  after  two  years'  residence  they  could  not  be  told 
from  Englishmen.  In  1508,  it  is  said,  Thomas  Aubert,  a  pilot  of  Dieppe,  ex 
cited  great  curiosity  by  bringing  over  several  natives  to  France.  Carlier 
took  two  back  with  him  to  France,  but  with  their  own  consent ;  and  they 
were  eventually,  I  believe,  restored  to  their  native  country.  Weymouth,  in 
1605,  seized  five  at  Pemaquid ;  Harlow,  in  1611,  five  more;  and  Hunt,  the 
greatest  thief  of  them  all,  kidnaped  in  this  very  harbor  of  Plymouth,  in  the 
year  1614,  twenty-four  of  those  silly  savages,  and  sold  them  in  Spain  for  reals 
of  eight.  After  such  treachery  it  is  not  strange  the  red  men  looked  on  these 
new-comers  as  their  natural  enemies.  It  is  more  extraordinary  that  Samoset, 
on  entering  their  weak  village  some  months  after  their  landing,  should  have 
greeted  them  with  the  memorable  "  Welcome,  Englishmen  !" 

The  Pilgrims  saw  in  the  evidences  of  prior  intercourse  with  Europeans,  that 
they  were  not  the  pioneers  in  this  wilderness  of  New  England.  They  found 

1  Followed  as  literally  as  possible,  to  preserve  the  style. 
3  Named  by  De  Monts,  and  supposed  to  be  Brant  Point. 


276  THE  NEW  ENGLAND   COAST. 

implements  and  utensils  of  civilized  manufacture,  though  no  fire-arms.  These 
articles  were  probably  obtained  by  barter  with  the  fishing  or  trading  ships. 

On  William  Wood's  map  of  1634,1  Old  Plymouth  is  laid  down  on  the 
eastern  shore  of  Narraganset  Bay,  while  New  Plymouth  has  its  proper  posi 
tion.  "New  Plimouth  "  is  placed  on  Blauw's  map  at  the  head  of  a  small 
bay,  into  which  a  large  river  flows.  One  of  the  headlands  of  the  bay  is 
named  C.  Blanco  Gallis,  and  the  bay  itself  Crane  Bay.  Josselyn  has  also 
this  reference  to  Old  Plymouth  : 

"At  the  farther  end  of  the  bay,  by  the  mouth  of  Narraganset  River, 
on  the  south  side  thereof  was  Old  Plymouth  plantation,  Anno  1602."  He 
may  have  borrowed  his  itinerary  in  part  from  Wood,  who,  as  I  take  it,  re 
ferred  to  Gosnold's  attempt  at  the  mouth  of  Buzzard's  Bay.  In  his  sum 
mary,  under  date  of  1607,' Josselyn  notes,  "  Plimouth  plantation  in  New  En 
gland  attempted." 

I  spent  some  hours  among  the  grave-stones  on  Burial  Hill.  Here,  as  in 
the  streets  of  the  living  inhabitants,  the  old  familiar  names  of  the  Mayflow 
er's  passengers  are  to  be  met  with.  And  in  every  burial-place  in  the  land, 
I  make  no  doubt,  are  to  be  found  Rowlands  and  Winslows,  Bradfords  and 
Brewsters,  side  by  side.  I  have  felt  myself  much  moved  in  thinking  on  the 
story  of  those  stern  men  and  self-contained,  trustful  women.  Their  whole 
lives  might  justly  be  called  a  pilgrimage. .  Consider  their  gathering  in  the 
Old  England  they  loved  so  well;  then  their  dispersion,  suffering,  and  hurried 
flight  into  Holland ;  afterward  the  staking  their  all  on  the  issue  of  their  ven 
ture  in  the  New  World,  and  the  painful,  anxious  lives  they  led ;  despoiling 
the  young  of  their  youth,  and  the  elders  of  a  peaceful  old  age. 

This  spot,  as  is  well  known,  was  not  the  Pilgrims'  original  place  of  inter 
ment.  They  who  first  died  were  buried  on  Cole's  Hill,  nearer  the  shore,  and 
to  the  strait  limits  of  their  little  hamlet.  They  lost  one  half  their  number 
during  the  first  dismal  winter,  and  there  was  room  enough  without  going  far 
to  make  their  graves.  Tradition  says  that,  fearing  their  wretchedness  might 
inspire  the  Indians  with  the  hope  of  exterminating  them,  those  early  graves 
were  first  leveled  and  then  planted  upon  in  order  to  conceal  their  losses.  It 
is  said  that  sixty  years  elapsed  before  a  grave-stone  with  an  inscription  was 
set  up  in  Plymouth  ;  certain  it  is  that  none  older  has  been  found  than  that 
of  Edward  Gray,  merchant,  who  died  in  1681. 

The  obliterated  grave-yard  on  Cole's  Hill,  which  was  nothing  more  than  a 
sea-bluff  overhanging  the  shore,  was  flooded  by  a  freshet  about  1735,  laying 
bare  many  of  the  graves,  and  carrying  along  with  it  to  the  sea  many  of  the 
remains.  It  is  the  supposed  resting-place  of  Carver,  the  first  governor  of 
Plymouth,  and  of  his  wife,  who  did  not  long  survive  him.  It  contained  the 
ashes  of  fifty  of  the  one  hundred  and  two  that  had  landed  in  December.  In 

1  "The  south  part  of  New  England,  as  it  is  planted  this  yeare,  1G34." 


PLYMOUTH.  077 

the  time  of  the  first  winter's  sickness,  says  Hutchinson,  there  were  not  above 
seven  men  capable  of  bearing  arms.  And  yet,  when  they  were  almost  too 
few  to  bury  their  own  dead,  they  talked  of  war  with  Canonicus  as  if  it  were 
mere  bagatelle,  answering  defiance  with  defiance.  I  fancy  those  Pilgrims 
were  of  the  right  sttiif! 

On  Burial  Hill  is  a  monument  to  the  memory  of  Governor  Bradford,  who 
succeeded  Carver,  and  was  annually  chosen  from  1621  until  his  death,  in  1657 
— except  during  the  years  1633, 1636, 1638,  and  1644,  when  Edward  Winslow, 
and  in  1634,  when  Thomas  Prence,  administered  the  colony  affairs.  In  sev 
enty  years  there  were  only  six  different  persons  governors  of  Plymouth. 
Roger  White,  the  friend  of  Bradford,  writes  him  a  letter  from  Leyden,  Decem 
ber,  1625,  counseling  rotation  in  office,  more  than  hinting  that  the  constant 
re-election  of  himself  to  the  chief  office  in  the  colony  tended  to  an  oligarchy.1 
Bradford  was  among  the  earliest  to  go  into  Holland  for  conscience'  sake.  He 
was  of  good  estate,  and  had  learned  the  art  of  silk-dyeing  in  Amsterdam. 
His  residence  in  the  New  World  began  in  affliction,  for,  before  a  site  for  set 
tlement  had  been  fixed  upon,  his  wife,  Dorothy  May,  fell  from  the  vessel  into 
the  sea  and  was  drowned.  His  monument  was  erected,  some  years  ago,  by 
descendants. 

In  a  conspicuous  position  is  the  monument  raised,  in  1858,  by  the  descend 
ants  of  Robert  Cushman,  and  of  Thomas  Cushman,  his  son,  for  forty-three 
years  ruling  elder  of  the  church  of  the  Pilgrims.  Of  all  the  original  memo 
rial  tablets  in  this  old  cemetery,  those  of  Thomas  Cushman,  who  came  in  1621, 
in  the  Fortune,  and  of  Thomas  Clark,  a  passenger  by  the  Ann,  in  1623,  alone 
were  remaining.  The  grave  of  John  Howland,  an  emigrant  of  the  Mayflower, 
has  been  identified,  and  furnished  with  a  handsome  head-stone.  In  some  in 
stances  boards  bearing  simply  the  name  and  age  of  the  deceased  have  re 
placed  the  aged  and  no  longer  legible  stones,  as  in  the  cases  of  Elder  Thomas 
Faunce,  William  Crowe,  and  others.  The  stone  of  Thomas  Clark  was  the 
most  curious  I  saw,  and  in  general  the  inscriptions  do  not  possess  other  in 
terest  than  the  recollections  they  summon  up.  The  grave  of  Dr.  Adoniram 
Judson  is  also  here. 

Burial  Hill  is  also  memorable  as  the  site  of  the  second2  regular  church  ed 
ifice  in  New  England,  built  to  serve  the  double  purpose  of  church  and  citadel. 
From  this  cause  the  eminence  was  long  called  Fort  Hill.  By  February,  1621, 
after  the  defiance  of  Canonicus,  the  town  wras  inclosed  within  a  palisade,  tak 
ing  in  the  top  of  the  hill  under  which  it  was  situated.  In  1622  the  colonists 
built  their  church-fortress ;  it  should  have  been  dedicated  with  Luther's  an 
them  : 

1  "Collections  of  the  Massachusetts  Historical  Society." 

3  See  Popham's  settlement  on  the  Kennebec ;  the  Episcopal  service  was  doubtless  the  first 
religious  exercise  in  New  England. 


278  THE  NEW  ENGLAND  COAST. 

"God  is  a  castle  and  defense, 

When  troubles  and  distress  invade, 
He'll  help  and  free  us  from  offense, 
And  ever  shield  us  with  his  aid." 

Ever  willing  to  turn  an  honest  penny,  the  Dutch,  in  1627,  opened  a  corre 
spondence  between  Fort  Amsterdam  and  Plymouth,  with  offers  of  trade. 
They  followed  it  with  an  embassy  in  the  person  of  Isaac  de  Kasieres,  who, 
says  Bradford,  was  their  chief  merchant,  and  second  to  their  governor.  He 
came  into  Plymouth  "  honorably  attended  with  a  noise  of  trumpeters."  It 
is  in  a  letter  of  De  Rasieres,  found  at  The  Hague  by  Mr.  Brodhead,  that  we 
obtain  a  circumstantial  account  of  town  and  fortress  as  they  then  existed. 

"Upon  the  hill,"  he  writes,  "they  have  a  large,  square  house,  with  a  flat 
roof,  made  of  thick  sawn  planks,  stayed  with  oak  beams,  upon  the  top  of 
which  they  have  six  cannons,  which  shoot  iron  balls  of  four  and  five  pounds, 
and  command  the  surrounding  country.  The  lower  part  they  use  for  their 
church,  where  they  preach  on  Sundays  and  the  usual  holidays."1 

A  looker-on  here  in  1807  found  in  this  burying-ground  and  on  the  summit 
of  the  hill  the  remains  of  the  ditch  that  surrounded  the  ancient  fortification 
erected  in  1675,  on  the  approach  of  Philip's  war.  This  was  a  work  of  great 
er  magnitude  than  that  of  the  first  adventurers,  inclosing  a  space  one  hundred 
feet  square,  strongly  palisaded  with  pickets  ten  and  a  half  feet  high.  As  late 
as  1844  the  whole  circuit  of  this  work  was  distinctly  visible.2  The  head  of 
Wittuwamet,  one  of  the  chiefs  killed  by  Standish's  party  at  Weymouth  in 
1623,  was  set  up  on  the  battlements  of  the  fort,  as  was  afterward  that  of  the 
renowned  King  Philip.  The  vaunting,  the  exasperating  mockery  of  a  savage, 
is  in  these  lines : 

"'Who  is  there  here  to  fight  with  the  brave  Wattavvamat ?' 
Then  he  unsheathed  his  knife,  and,  whetting  the  blade  on  his  left  hand, 
Held  it  aloft  and  displayed  a  woman's  face  on  the  handle, 
Saying,  with  bitter  expression  and  look  of  sinister  meaning, 
'  I  have  another  at  home,  with  the  face  of  a  man  on  the  handle ; 
By-and-by  they  shall  marry;  and  there  will  be  plenty  of  children.'" 

According  to  Edward  Winslow,  the  English  stood  to  their  guns  when 
Indians  came  among  them.  To  allay  distrust  in  the  minds  of  the  savages, 
they  were  told  it  was  an  act  of  courtesy  observed  by  the  English,  both  on 

1  Captain  John  Smith,  speaking  of  the  town  in  1624,  says  of  this  fortress,  there  was  "within  a 
high  mount  a  fort,  with  a  watch-tower,  well  built  of  stone,  lome,  and  wood,  their  ordnance  well 
mounted." 

2  During  some  excavations  made  on  the  hill,  remains  of  the  watch-tower  of  brick  came  to 
light,  indicating  its  position  to  have  been  in  the  vicinity  of  the  Judson  monument.     There  also 
existed  on  the  hill,  until  about  1860,  a  powder-house  of  antique  fashion,  built  in  1770.     It  had  an 
oval  slab  of  slate  imbedded  in  the  wall,  with  a  Latin  inscription ;  and  there  were  also  engraved 
upon  it  a  powder-horn,  cartridge,  and  a  cannon. — "Pilgrim  Memorial." 


PLYMOUTH.  279 

land  and  sea.  The  sentinel  who  paced  his  lonely  round  here  in  1622  should 
have  had  steady  nerves.  The  nearest  outpost  was  his  fellow- watcher  on  the 
ramparts  of  Fort  Amsterdam.  He  could  hardly  pass  the  word  on  "All's 
well !"  to  Jamestown  or  Saint  Augustine,  or  hear  the  challenge  from  Port 
Royal,  in  Acadia.  Behind  him  was  the  wilderness,  out  of  which  it  was  a 
wonder  the  Indians  did  not  burst,  it  was  so  easy  to  overwhelm  the  devoted 
little  band  of  Englishmen  and  brush  them  away  into  the  sea.  I  make  no  ac 
count  of  the  few  scattered  cabins  along  the  northern  coast,  and  the  Pilgrims 
made  no  account  of  them.  Thus  they  lived  for  ten  years  within  the  narrow 
limits  of  an  intrenched  camp,  a  picket  lodged  within  an  enemy's  country,  un 
til  the  settlement  in  Massachusetts  Bay  enabled  them  to  draw  breath.  Why 
might  they  not  say  to  those  after-comers, 

"We  are  the  Jasons;  we  have  won  the  fleece?" 

The  procession  of  the  Pilgrims  to  their  church  was  a  sight  that  must  have 
exceedingly  stirred  the  sluggish  blood  of  the  Dutch  emissary.  He  found 
them  attentive  to  proffers  of  trade;  acute,  as  might  be  expected  of  the  first 
Yankees,  where  profits  were  in  question ;  but  there  was  no  doubt  about  the 
quality  of  their  piety.  At  the  hour  of  worship  the  silent  village  was  assembled 
by  drum-beat,  as  was  befitting  in  the  Church  Militant.  At  this  signal  the 
house-doors  open  and  give  passage  to  each  family.  The  men  wear  their  sad- 
colored  mantles,  and  are  armed  to  the  teeth,  as  if  going  to  battle.  Silently 
they  take  their  places  in  front  of  the  captain's  door,  three  abreast,  with  match 
locks  shouldered.  The  tall,  stern-visaged  ones,  we  may  suppose,  lead  the  rest. 
In  front  is  the  sergeant.  Behind  the  armed  men  comes  Bradford,  in  a  long 
robe.  At  his  right  hand  is  Elder  Brewster,  with  his  cloak  on.  At  the  gov 
ernor's  left  marches  Miles  Standish,  his  rapier  lifting  up  the  corner  of  his 
mantle,  and  carrying  a  small  cane  in  his  hand.  The  women  in  sober  gowns, 
kerchiefs,  and  hoods,  their  garments  poor,  but  scrupulously  neat,  follow  next; 
the  lowlier  yielding  precedence  to  those  of  better  condition.  At  command, 
they  take  their  way  up  the  hill  in  this  order,  and,  entering  within  the  rude 
temple  they  have  raised,  each  man  sets  down  his  musket  where  he  may  lay 
hand  upon  it.  "Thus,"  says  De  Rasieres,  "they  are  on  their  guard  night 
and  day." 

Thomas  Lechford,  "  of  Clement's  Inn,  Gent,"  in  his  "Plain  Dealing,"  says 
he  once  looked  in  the  church-door  in  Boston  where  the  sacrament  was  being 
administered.  He  thus  noted  down  what  he  saw:  "They  come  together 
about  nine  o'clock  by  ringing  of  a  bell.  Pastor  prayed  for  a  quarter  of  an 
hour.  The  teacher  then  readeth  and  expoundeth  a  chapter;  then  a  psalm  is 
sung,  which  one  of  the  ruling  Elders  dictates.  Afterward  the  pastor  preaches 
a  sermon,  or  exhorts  ex  tempore." 

This  is  the  way  in  which  they  made  contributions:  "On  Sundays,  in  the 
afternoon,  when  the  sermon  is  ended,  the  people  in  the  galleries  come  down 


280  THE  NEW  ENGLAND   COAST. 

and  march  two  abreast  up  one  aisle  and  down  the  other,  until  they  come  be 
fore  the  desk,  for  pulpit  they  have  none.  Before  the  desk  is  a  long  pue  where 
the  elders  and  deacons  sit,  one  of  them  with  a  money-box  in  his  hand,  into 
which  the  people,  as  they  pass,  put  their  offering,  some  a  shill,  some  2s.,  some 
half  a  crown,  five  s.,  according  to  their  ability.  Then  they  conclude  with  a 
prayer." 

Lechford  adds  that  the  congregation  used  to  pass  up  by  the  deacon's  seat, 
giving  either  money,  or  valuable  articles,  or  paper  promises  to  pay,  and  so  to 
their  seats  again,  the  chief  men  or  magistrates  first.  The  same  author  de 
scribes  the-  method  of  excommunication  practiced  in  some  of  the  New  En 
gland  churches.  "At  New  Haven,  alias  Quinapeag,"  he  says,  "  where  Master 
Davenport  is  pastor,  the  excommunicate  is  held  out  of  the  meeting,  at  the 
doore,  if  he  will  heare,  in  frost,  snow,  and  raine." 

The  Pilgrims  are  often  called  Puritans,  a  term  of  reproach  first  applied  to 
the  whole  body  of  Dissenters,  but  in  their  day  belonging  strictly  to  those  who 
renounced  the  forms  and  ceremonies  while  believing  in  the  doctrines  and  sac 
raments  of  the  Church  of  England.  Boston  was  settled  by  Puritans,  who,  ac 
cording  to  Governor  Winthrop,  adhered  to  the  mother-church  when  they  left 
Old  England.  Alt  is  curious  to  observe  that  the  Boston  Puritans  became  rig 
id  Separatists,  while  the  Plymouth  Separatists  became  more  and  more  mod 
erate.  The  Pilgrims  were  originally  of  the  sect  called  Brownists,  from  Rob 
ert  Brown,  a  school-master  in  Southwark  about  1580,  and  a  relation  of  Cecil, 
Lord  Burghley.1  Cardinal  Bentivoglio  erroneously  calls  the  Holland  refu 
gees  a  distinct  sect  by  the  name  of  Puritans.  Hutchinson,  usually  well  in 
formed,  observes,  "If  all  in  England  who  called  themselves  Brownists  and  In 
dependents  at  that  day  had  come  over  with  them  (the  Pilgrims),  they  would 
scarcely  have  made  one  considerable  town."  Yet  in  1592  there  were  said  to 
be  twenty  thousand  Independents  in  England. 

The  Church  of  the  Pilgrims,  formed,  in  1602,  of  people  living  on  the  bor 
ders  of  Nottinghamshire,  Lincolnshire,  and  Yorkshire,  made  their  way,  after 
innumerable  difficulties,  into  Holland.  Their  pastor,  John  Robinson,  is  usu 
ally  regarded  as  the  author  of  Independency.  A  residence  on  the  scene  of 
the  Reformation  softened,  in  many  respects,  the  inflexible  religious  character 
of  the  Brownists.  They  discarded  the  name  rendered  odious  on  many  ac 
counts.  It  is  stated,  on  the  authority  of  Edward  Winslow,  that  Robinson  and 
his  Church  did  not  require  renunciation  of  the  Church  of  England,  acknowl 
edging  the  other  reformed  churches,  and  allowing  occasional  communion  with 


1  Robert  Brown,  the  founder  of  the  sect,  after  thirty-two  imprisonments,  eventually  conformed. 
Henry  Penny,  Henry  Barrow,  and  other  Brownists,  were  cruelly  executed  for  alleged  sedition,  May 
29th,  1593.  Elizabeth's  celebrated  Act  of  1593  visited  a  refusal  to  make  a  declaration  of  conform 
ity  with  the  Church  of  England  with  banishment  and  forfeiture  of  citizenship  ;  death  if  the  offender 
returned  into  the  realm. 


PLYMOUTH.  281 

them.  It  is  also  evident  from  what  Bradford  says  that  the  Pilgrims  chose 
the  Huguenots  as  their  models  in  Church  affairs.1 

Botli  in  regard  to  civil  and  ecclesiastical  aifairs  the  Pilgrims  were  placed 
in  a  situation  of  serious  difficulty.  The  King  of  England  promised  not  to  in 
terfere  with  them  in  religious  matters,  but  would  not  acknowledge  them  by 
any  public  act  under  his  hand  and  seal.  Some  of  the  most  influential  of  the 
company  of  English  merchants,  by  whom  they  were  transported  to  New  En 
gland,  did  not  sympathize  with  them  in  their  religious  views,  and  at  length 
broke  off  from  them,  and  left  them  to  struggle  on  alone  as  best  they  might. 
This  is  apparent  in  the  plan  to  prevent  the  remnant  of  the  Church  of  Leyden 
from  coming  over.  It  is  also  clear  that  neither  the  motives  nor  the  intentions 
of  the  Pilgrims  were  well  understood  by  the  adventurers  at  the  outset,  and 
that  as  soon  as  these  were  fully  developed,  the  merchants,  or  a  majority  of 
them,  preferred  to  augment  their  colony  writh  a  more  pliant  and  less  obnox 
ious  class  of  emigrants  than  the  first-comers  had  proved.  In  examining  the 
charges  and  complaints  of  the  one,  and  the  explanations  of  the  other,  it  is 
difficult  to  avoid  the  conclusion  that  a  good  deal  of  duplicity  was  used  by 
the  Pilgrims  to  keep  the  breath  of  life  in  their  infant  plantation. 

It  appears  that  the  settlers  in  Massachusetts  Bay  were  not  acquainted  with 
the  form  of  worship  practiced  by  the  Pilgrims,  as  Endicott  writes  to  Governor 
Bradford  from  "  Naumkeak,  May  llth,  1629:  I  acknowledge  myself  much 
bound  to  you  for  your  kind  love  and  care  in  sending  Mr.  Fuller  among  us, 
and  rejoice  much  that  I  am  by  him  satisfied  touching  your  judgments  of  the 
outward  form  of  God's  worship;  it  is  (as  far  as  I  can  yet  gather)  no  other 
than  is  warranted 'by  the  evidence  of  truth,  and  the  same  which  I  have  pro 
fessed  and  maintained  ever  since  the  Lord  in  his  mercy  revealed  himself  unto 
me,  being  far  differing  from  the  common  reports  that  hath  been  spread  of 
you  touching  that  particular."2 

I  have  thought  it  worth  mentioning  that  the  church  at  Salem  was  the 
first  completely  organized  Congregational  church  in  America.  It  was  gath 
ered  August  6th,  1619,  when  Rev.  Mr.  Higginson  was  ordained  teacher,  and 
Mr.  Skelton  pastor.3  Governor  Bradford  and  others  deputed  from  the  church 
at  Plymouth,  coming  into  the  assembly  in  the  hour  of  the  solemnity,  gave 
them  the  right  hand  of  fellowship.  Robinson  never  having  come  over,  Plym 
outh  was  without  a  pastor  for  some  years. 

1  Sir  Matthew  Hale  used  to  say,  "Those  of  the  Separation  were  good  men,  but  they  had  nar 
row  souls,  or  they  would  not  break  the  peace  of  the  Church  about  such  inconsiderable  matters  as 
the  points  of  difference  were."  In  this  country  the  Independents  took  the  name  of  Congregation- 
alists.  They  held,  among  other  things,  that  one  church  may  advise  or  reprove  another,  but  had 
no  power  to  excommunicate.  The  churches  outside  of  Plymouth  did,  however,  practice  excommu 
nication. 

a  Governor  Bradford's  Letter-book. 

3  The  teacher  explained  doctrines ;   the  pastor  enforced  them  by  suitable  exhortations. 


282 


THE  NEW  ENGLAND  COAST. 


Under  Charles  I.  the  Pilgrims  fared  little  better  than  in  the  preceding  reign ; 
but  they  had  seated  themselves  firmly  by  the  period  of  the  Civil  War.  On 
the  day  before  his  arrival  at  Shrewsbury,  the  king  caused  the  military  orders 
to  be  read  at  the  head  of  each  regiment.  Then,  mounting  his  horse,  and 
placing  himself  in  the  midst,  where  all  might  hear,  he  made  a  speech  to  his 
soldiers,  in  which  this  passage  occurs  : 

"  Gentlemen,  you  have  heard  these  orders  read ;  it  is  your  part,  in  your 

severall  places,  to  observe  them  exactly I  can  not  suspect  your  Courage 

and  Resolution ;  your  Conscience  and  your  Loyalty  hath  brought  you  hither 
to  fight  for  your  Religion,  your  King,  and  the  Laws  of  the  Land ;  you  shall 
fight  with  no  Enemies,  but  Traitours,  most  of  them  Brownists,  Anabaptists, 
and  Atheists,  such  who  desire  to  destroy  both  Church  and  State,  and  who 
have  already  condemned  you  to  ruin  for  being  Loyall  to  vs." 

Here,  then,  were  a  handful  of  men  repudiated  by  their  king,  cast  off  by  their 
commercial  partners,  a  prey  to  the  consequences  of  civil  war  at  home,  and  liv 
ing  by  sufferance  in  the  midst  of  a  fierce  and  warlike  people,  compelled  at  last 
to  work  out  their  own  political  destiny.  What  wonder  that  with  them  self- 
preservation  stood  first,  last,  and  always !  All  other  settlements  in  New  En 
gland  were  made  with  the  hope  of  gain  alone,  few,  if  any,  colonists  meaning 
to  make  a  permanent  home  in  its  wilds.  We  may  not  withhold  the  respect 
due  to  these  Pilgrims,  who  were  essentially  a  unit,  embodying  the  germ  of 
civil,  political,  and  religious  liberty.  They  beheld  from  the  beach  the  vanish 
ing  sail  of  the  Mayflower  as  men  who  had  accepted  what  fate  may  bring  to 
them.  They  did  not  mean  to  go  back. 


THE  PILGRIMS'  FIKST  ENCOUNTER. 


CHAPTER  XVIII. 
PLYMOUTH,  CLARK'S  ISLAND,  AND  DUXBURY. 

"Ay,  call  it  holy  ground, 

The  soil  where  first  they  trod ! 
They  have  left  unstain'd  what  there  they  found — 
Freedom  to  worship  God!" — MRS.  HEMAXS. 

T  ET  us  now  take  a  walk  in  Leyden  Street.  Until  1802  the  principal  street 
-•— ^  of  the  Pilgrims  was  without  a  name ;  it  was  then  proposed  to  give  it 
the  one  it  now  so  appropriately  bears.  In  my  descent  of  the  hill  into  the 
town  square,  I  passed  under  the  shade  of  some  magnificent  elms  just  putting 
forth  their  spring  buds.  Some  of  those  natural  enemies  of  trees  were  talking 
of  cutting  down  the  noblest  of  them  all,  that  has  stood  for  nearly  a  hundred 
years,  and  long  shaded  Governor  Bradford's  house.1 

Consulting  again   our  old  guide,  De  Rasieres,  I  find  he  tells  us,  "  New 
Plymouth  lies  on  the  slope  of  a  hill  stretching  east,  toward  the   sea-coast, 

1  These  trees  are  said  to  have  been  planted  in  1783,  by  Thomas  Davis. 


284 


THE  NEW  ENGLAND   COAST. 


BUILDING   ON    THE    SITE    OF   BRADFORD  S   MANSION. 


with  a  broad  street  about  a  cannon-shot  of  eight  hundred  [yards]  long  lead 
ing  down  the  hill;  with  a  street  crossing  in  the  middle  northward  to  the  riv 
ulet  and  southward 
to  the  land.  The 
houses  are  con 
structed  of  hewn 
planks,  with  gar 
dens,  also  inclosed 
behind  and  at  the 
sides  with  hewn 
planks ;  so  that 
their  houses  and 
court-yards  are  ar 
ranged  in  very 
good  order,  with  a 
stockade  against  a 
sudden  attack;  and 
at  the  ends  of  the 
streets  there  are 
three  wooden  gates. 

In  the  centre,  on  the  cross-street,  stands  the  governor's  house,  before  which 
is  a  square  inclosure,  upon  which  four  pateros  [steenstucken]  are  mounted,  so 
as  to  flank  along  the  streets."  We  are  standing,  then,  in  the  ancient  place  of 
arms  of  the  Pilgrims. 

Nearest  to  us,  on  the  north  side  of  the  square,  is  the  site  of  Governor  Brad 
ford's  house,  with  the  Church  of  the  Pilgrimage  just  beyond.  The  dwelling 
of  the  governor  was  long  ago  removed  to  the  north  part  of  the  town,  and 
this,  its  successor,  does  not  fulfill  our  want,  as  the  veritable  habitation  of  the 
much-honored  magistrate  would  do.  Nearly  opposite  is  the  old  county  court 
house,  erected  in  1749.  Up  at  the  head  of  this  inclosed  spac.e,  which  long 
custom  miscalls  a  square,  is  the  First  Church,  its  pinnacles  appearing  dimly 
through  the  interweaving  branches  of  tall  elms.  There  is  a  coolness  as  well 
as  a  repose  about  the  spot  that  makes  us  loiter. 

After  the  tragic  death  of  his  first  wife,  Bradford  bethought  him  of  Mrs. 
South  worth,  whom  he  had  known  and  wooed  in  old  England  as  Alice  Carpen 
ter.  She  was  now  a  widow.  He  renewed  his  suit,  and  she  hearkened  to  him. 
But  as  the  governor  could  not  leave  his  magistracy,  the  lady,  ceding  her 
woman's  rights,  took  ship,  and  came  to  Plymouth  in  August,  1623.  In  a 
fortnight  they  were  married. 

Bradford  tells  how  the  passengers  of  the  ship  Ann,  of  whom  Mistress 
South  worth  was  one,  were  affected  by  what  they  saw  when  they  first  set 
foot  in  Plymouth.  They  were  met  by  a  band  of  haggard  men  and  women, 
meanly  appareled,  and  in  some  cases  little  better  than  half-naked.  The  best 


PLYMOUTH,  CLARK'S  ISLAND,  AND  DUXBURY.  285 

dish  they  could  set  before  their  friends  was  a  lobster  or  piece  offish,  without 
other  drink  than  a  cup  of  water.  Some  of  the  newly  arrived  fell  weeping; 
others  wished  themselves  in  England  again,  while  even  the  joy  of  meeting 
friends  -from  whom  they  had  long  been  separated  could  not  dispel  the  sad 
ness  of  others  in  beholding  their  miserable  condition.  The  governor  has  not 
told  us  of  the  coming  of  Alice  South  worth,  but  says  simply  there  were  "some 
very  useful  persons  "  on  board  the  ship  Ann. 

Here  the  governor  entertained  Pere  Gabriel  Dreuillettes,  in  1650,  with  a 
fish  dinner,  because,  says  the  good  old  Jesuit,  it  was  a  Friday.  The  govern 
or  was  equal  to  the  courtesy;  yet,  I  fancy,  fish  dinners  were  often  eaten  in 
Plymouth. 

Bradford's  second  wife  survived  him  thirteen  years.  With  her  came  his 
brother-in-law,  George  Morton,  her  sister,  Bridget  Fuller,1  and  two  daughters 
of  Elder  Brewster.  She  lived  thirty  years  with  her  second  husband,  and, 
from  the  tribute  of  Nathaniel  Morton,2  must  have  been  a  woman  of  an  exem 
plary  and  beautiful  character.  Her  sister,  Mary  Carpenter,  lived  to  be  nine 
ty  years  old.  She  is  referred  to  in  the  church  records  of  Plymouth  as  "  a 
godly  old  maid,  never  married." 

Apropos  of  the  governor's  wedding,  I  extract  this  notice  of  the  first  mar 
riage  in  the  colony  from  his  history:  "May  12th,  1621,  was  ye  first  marriage 
in  this  place,  which,  according  to  ye  laudable  custome  of  ye  Low  Countries, 
was  thought  most  requisite  to  be  performed  by  the  magistrate,  as  being  a 
civill  thing,  upon  which  many  questions  aboute  inheritance  doe  depende,"  etc. 

When  Edward  Winslow  was  in  England  as  agent  of  the  colony,  and  was 
interrogated  at  the  instance  of  Laud,  Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  before  the 
Lords  Commissioners  of  the  Plantations,  he  was,  among  other  things,  ques 
tioned  upon  this  practice  of  marriage  by  magistrates.  He  answered  boldly 
that  he  found  nothing  in  Scripture  to  restrict  marriage  to  the  clergy.  He 
also  alleged  that  the  plantation  had  long  been  without  a  minister,  and  finish 
ed  by  citing,  as  a  precedent,  his  own  marriage  by  a  magistrate  at  the  Staat- 
ham  in  Holland.  Morton,  who  appeared  as  an  accuser  of  Winslow,  says, 
"The  people  of  New  England  held  the  use  of  a  ring  in  marriage  to  be  a  re- 
lique  of  popery,  a  diabolical  circle  for  the  Devell  to  daunce  in." 

As  soon  as. they  had  definitely  settled  upon  a  location,  the  colonists  went 
to  work  building  their  town.  They  began  to  prepare  timber  as  early  as  the 
23d  of  December,  but  the  inclemency  of  the  season  and  the  distance  every 
thing  was  to  be  transported — there  were  no  trees  standing  within  an  eighth 
of  a  mile  of  the  present  Leyden  Street — made  the  work  painfully  laborious 
and  the  progress  slow.  On  the  twenty-eighth  day  the  company  was  consoli- 

1  Wife  of  Samuel  Fuller.     She  gave  the  church  the  lot  of  ground  on  which  the  pnrsonage 
stood.—  Allen. 

2  See  Appendix  to  Bradford's  History. 


286 


THE  NEW  ENGLAND   COAST. 


dated  into  nineteen  families,  the  single  men  joining  some  household  in  order  to 
lessen  the  number  of  houses  to  be  built.  They  then  staked  out  the  ground, 
giving  every  person  half  a  pole  in  breadth  and  three  in  length.  Each  head  of 
a  family  chose  his  homestead  by  lot,  and  each  man  was  required  to  build  his 
own  house.  By  Tuesday,  the  9th  of  January,  the  Common  House  wanted 
nothing  but  the  thatch  to  be  complete ;  still,  although  it  was  only  twenty 
feet  square,  the  weather  was  so  inclement  that  it  took  four  days  to  cover  it. 
They  could  seldom  work  half  the  week. 

Captain  Smith  says,  in  1624,  the  town  consisted  of  two-and-thirty  houses 
and  about  a  hundred  and  eighty  people.  The  Common  House  is  believed  to 

have  stood  on  the  south  side 
of  Leyden  Street,  where  the 
abrupt  descent  of  the  hill  be 
gins.  In  digging  a  cellar  on 
the  spot,  in  1801,  sundry  tools 
and  a  plate  of  iron  were  dis 
covered,  seven  feet  below  the 
surface  of  the  ground.  This 
house  is  supposed  to  have 
served  the  colonists  for  every 
purpose  of  a -public  nature  un 
til  the  building  of  their  for 
tress  on  Burial  Hill.  Mourt 
calls  it  their  rendezvous,  and 
relates  that  a  few  days  after  completion  it  took  fire  from  a  spark  in  the 
thatch.  At  the  time  of  the  accident  Governor  Carver  and  William  Bradford 
were  lying  sick  within,  with  their  muskets  charged,  and  the  thatch  blazing 
above  them,  to  their  very  great  danger.  In  this  Common  House  the  working 
parties  slept  until  their  dwellings  were  made  ready. 

It  was  worth  living  two  hundred  years  ago  to  have  witnessed  one  street 
scene  that  took  place  here.  John  Oldham,  the  contentious,  the  incorrigible, 
dared  to  return  to  Plymouth  after  banishment.  He  had,  with  Lyford,  tried 
to  breed  a  revolt  among  the  disaffected  of  the  colony.  A  rough  and  tough 
malignant  was  Oldham,  fiercely  denouncing  the  magistrates  .to  their  teeth 
when  called  to  answer  for  his  misdeeds.  He  defied  them  roundly  in  their 
grave  assembly.  Turning  to  the  by-standers,  he  exclaimed  : 

"My  maisters  whar  is  your  harts?  now  show  your  courage,  you  have  oft 
complained  to  me  so  and  so ;  now  is  ye  tyme  if  you  will  doe  any  thing,  I  will 
stand  by  you." 

He  returned  more  choleric  than  before,  calling  those  he  met  rebels  and 
traitors,  in  his  mad  fury.  They  put  him  under  guard  until  his  wrath  had 
time  to  cool,  and  set  their  invention  to  work.  He  was  compelled  to  pass 
through  a  double  file  of  musketeers,  every  one  of  whom  "  was  ordered  to  give 


SITE   OF   THE   COMMON   HOUSE. 


PLYMOUTH,  CLARK'S   ISLAND,  AND   DUXBURY. 


287 


him  a  thump  on  ye  brich,  with  ye  but  end  of  his  musket,"  and  was  then  con 
veyed  to  the  water-side,  where  a  boat  was  in  readiness  to  carry  him  away. 
They  then  bid  him  go  and  mend  his  manners.  The  idea  of  the  gantlet  was, 
I  suspect,  borrowed  from  the  Indians. 

This  little  colony  of  pilgrims  was  at  first  a  patriarchal  community.  Every 
thing  was  in  common.  Each  year  an  acre  of  land  was  allotted  to  every  inhab 
itant  to  cultivate.  The  complete  failure  of  the  experiment  ought  to  stand 
for  a  precedent,  though  it  seems  somehow  to  have  been  forgotten.  Men,  they 
found,  would  not  work  for  the  common  interest  as  for  themselves,  and  so  the 
idea  of  a  community  of  dependents  was  abandoned  for  an  association  of  inde 
pendent  factors.  From  this  time  they  began  to  get  on.  The  rent-day  did 
not  trouble  them.  "We  are  all  freeholders,"  writes  Edward  Hilton  home  to 
England.  In  1626  the  planters  bought  themselves  free  of  the  undertakers, 
who  oppressed  them  with  ruinous  charges  for  every  thing  furnished  the  col 
ony.  Allerton,  who  was  sent  over  in  1625  to  beg  the  loan  of  one  hundred 
pounds  sterling,  was  obliged  to  pay  thirty  pounds  in  the  hundred  interest  for 
the  two  hundred  pounds  he  had  obtained.  In  the  year  1627  they  divided  all 
their  stock  into  shares,  giving  each  person,  or  share,  twenty  acres  of  land, 
besides  the  single  acre  already  allotted. 

It  is  time  to  resume  our  walk  down  Leyden  Street.  On  reaching  the 
bluff  before  mentioned  the  street  divides,  one  branch  descending  the  decliv 
ity  toward  the  water,  while  the  other  skirts  the  ^ill-Side.  The  Universalist 
Church  at  the  corner  marks  the  site  of  the  Allyne  House,  an  ancient  dwell 
ing  demolish 
ed  about  1826. 
By  the  Plym 
outh  records,  it 
appears  that, 
in  1699,  Mr. 
Joseph  Allyne 
married  Mary 
Doten,  daugh 
ter  of  Edward, 
and  grand 
daughter  of 
that  Edward 
Doten  who  had 
come  in  the 
Mayflower. 
Among  the 
children  of  Jo 
seph  Allyne 
born  in  the  old  THE  ALLYNE  HOUSE. 


288 


THE  NEW  ENGLAND  COAST. 


homestead  was  Mary,  who  became  the  mother  of  that  "flame  of  fire,"  James 
Otis.  The  house  commanded  a  fine  view  of  the  bay,  its  foundations  being 
higher  than  the  chimneys  in  the  streets  below.  It  may  not,  perhaps,  be  gen 
erally  known  that  James  Otis,  after  completing  his  studies  in  the  office  of 
Jeremiah  Gridley,  then  the  most  eminent  lawyer  in  the  province,  came  from 
Boston  to  Plymouth,  where  he  took  an  office  in  the  main  street.  He  practiced 
there  during  the  years  1748-'49,  when  his  talents  called  him  to  a  broader  field. 
Mercy,  the  sister  of  James  Otis,  married  James  Warren,  a  native  of  Plym 
outh.  He  succeeded  General  Joseph  Warren  as  president  of  the  Provincial 
Congress  of  Massachusetts,  but  is  better  known  as  the  author  of  the  cele 
brated  "Committee  of  Correspondence,"  which  he  proposed  to  Samuel  Adams 
while  the  latter  was  at  his  house.  Mrs.  Warren,  at  the  age  of  seventy,  was 
visited  by  the  Duke  De  Liancourt.  "  She  then  retained,"  he  says,  "  the  activ 
ity  of  mind  which  distinguished  her  as  a  sister  of  James  Otis ;  nor  had  she 
lost  the  graces  of  person  or  conversational  powers,  which  made  her  still  a 


charming  companion. 


For  reasons  apparent  to  the  reader,  she  resolved  not, 

to  send  her  "  History 
of  the  Revolution"  to 
the  press  during  her 
husband's  lifetime. 

Going  beyond  the 
church,  we  come  upon 
the  open  space  of 
greensward,  inter 
sected  by  footpaths, 
known  as  Cole's  Hill. 
Some  defensive  works 
were  erected  on  this 
bank  in  1742,  in  the 
Revolution, and  again 
in  1814.  I  have  al 
ready  traversed  it 
in  imagination,  when 
standing  on  the  sum 
mit  of  Burial  Hill. 


THE   JOANNA   DAVIS   HOUSE,  COLE'S   HILL. 


It  is  no  longer  a 
place  of  graves,  nor 
does  it  in  the  least  suggest,  by  any  monumental  symbol,  the  tragedy  of  the 
Pilgrims'  first  winter  here,  when,  as  Bradford  touchingly  says,  "  Ye  well  were 
not  in  any  measure  sufficient  to  tend  ye  sicke ;  nor  the  living  scarce  able  to 
burie  the  dead."  Their  greatest  strait  was  in  May  and  June,  when  there 
were  no  wild  fowl.  Winslow  says  they  were  without  good  tackle  or  seines 
to  take  the  fish  that  swam  so  abundantly  in  the  harbor  and  creeks. 


PLYMOUTH,  CLARK'S  ISLAND,  AND  DUXBURY. 


289 


We  may  not  disguise  the  fact.  The  least  attractive  object  is  the  Rock  of 
the  Forefathers.  The  stranger  who  comes  prepared  to  do  homage  to  the  spot 
the  Pilgrims'  feet  first  pressed,  finds  his  sensibility  stricken  in  a  vital  place. 
The  insignificant  appearance  of  the  rock  itself,  buried  out  of  sight  beneath  a 
shrine  made  with  hands,  and  the  separation  of  the  sacred  ledge  into  two  frag 
ments,  each  of  which  claims  a  divided  regard,  give  a  death-blow  to  the  emo 
tions  of  awe  and  reverence  with  which  he  approaches  this  corner-stone  of 
American  history. 

Plymouth  Rock,  or  rather  what  is  left  of  it  in  its  original  position,  is 
reached  by  following  Water 


Street,  which,  as  its  name  indi 
cates,  skirts  the  shore,  conduct 
ing  you  through  a  region  once 
devoted  to  commerce,  now 
apparently  consigned  to  irre 
trievable  decay.  Near  Hedge's 
Wharf,  and  in  close  vicinity  to 
the  old  Town  Dock,  is  the  ob 
ject  of  our  present  search.  A 
canopy,  designed  by  Billings,  has 
been  built  above  it.  I  entered. 
In  the  stone  pavement  is  a  cav 
ity  of  perhaps  two  feet  square, 
and  underneath  the  uneven  sur 
face  the  rock  appears.  I  had 
often  wished  to  stand  here,  but 
now  all  enthusiasm  was  gone 
out  of  me.  I  had  rather  have  contented  myself  with  the  small  piece  so  long 
treasured,  and  with  the  loom  of  the  rock  as  my  imagination  had  beheld  it, 
than  to  stand  in  the  actual  presence  of  it. 

By  the  building  of  street  and  wharf  on  a  higher  level  the  rock  is  now  at 
some  little  distance  from  high- water  mark.1  At  one  time  the  sea  had  heaped 
the  sand  upon  it  to  the  depth  of  twenty  feet,  but  the  tradition  of  the  spot 
had  been  well  kept,  and  at  the  dawn  of  the  Revolution  the  sand  was  cleared 
away,  and  the  rock  again  laid  bare.  This  was  in  1774.  In  the  attempt  to  re 
move  it  from  its  bed  it  split  asunder,  the  superstitious  seeing  in  this  accident 
al  fracture  a  presage  of  the  division  of  the  British  empire  in  America.  The 
upper  half,  or  shell,  of  Forefathers'  Rock  was  removed  to  the  middle  of  the 
village,  and  placed  at  the  end  of  a  wall,  where,  along  with  vulgar  stones,  it 


PLYMOUTH   ROCK   IN   1850. 


1  In  1741,  when  it  was  proposed  to  bnild  a  wharf  near  the  rock,  it  was  pointed  out  as  the  iden 
tical  landing-place  of  the  Pilgrims  by  Elder  Thomas  Faunce,  who,  having  been  born  in  1646,  had. 
received  the  fact  from  the  original  settlers. 

19 


290  THE  NEW  ENGLAND  COAST. 

propped  the  embankment.  In  1834  the  fractured  half  was  removed  from  the 
town  square  to  its  present  position  in  front  of  Pilgrim  Hall,  where  it  is  now 
lying. 

The  honor  of  having  first  set  foot  on  this  threshold  of  fame  is  claimed  for 
John  Alclen  and  Mary  Chilton.  The  question  of  precedence  will  probably 
never  be  settled.  It  is  also  claimed  for  the  exploring  party  who  landed  from 
the  shallop  on  Monday,  the  ^-J-st  of  December,  commonly  called  Forefathers' 
Day.1 

For  more  than  two  hundred  years  the  22d  of  December  had  been  observed 
as  the  day  of  the  landing ;  that  is,  in  effect,  to  say,  it  had  been  so  observed  by 
the  Pilgrims  themselves,  by  their  descendants  around  their  firesides,  and  had 
received  the  sanction  of  formal  commemoration,  in  1769,  by  the  Old  Colony 
Club.  Men  were  then  living  who  were  within  two  generations  of  the  first 
comers,  and  retained  all  their  traditions  unimpaired.  After  this  long  period 
had  elapsed,  it  was  assumed  that  the  Pilgrims  had  designed  to  signalize  the 
landing  of  the  exploring  party  of  eighteen,  rather  than  that  from  the  Mayflow 
er,  and  upon  this  theory,  by  adopting  the  ne\v  style,  the  landing  was  fixed 
for  the  21st,  a  substitution  which  has  been  generally  acquiesced  in  by  re 
cent  writers.  Unless  it  is  believed  that  the  landing  of  the  party  of  discovery 
possessed  greater  significance  to  the  Pilgrims,  and  to  those  who  lived  within 
hearing  of  the  voices  of  the  Mayflower,  than  the  disembarkation  of  the  whole 
body  of  colonists  on  the  very  strand  they  had  finally  adopted  for  their  future 
home,  the  presumption  of  error  in  computing  the  difference  between  old  and 
new  style  has  little  force. 

For  six  weeks  these  explorations  had  continued  all  along  the  coast-line  of 
Cape  Cod,  and  nothing  had  been  settled  until  the  return  of  the  last  party  to 
the  ship.  The  Mayflower  then  sailed  for  Plymouth,  and  cast  anchor  in  the 
harbor  on  the' 16th  ;  but  the  explorations  continued,  nor  was  there  a  decision 
until  the  20th  as  to  the  best  point  for  fixing  the  settlement.  Moreover,  there 
are  no  precise  reasons  for  saying  that  the  first  exploring  party  landed  any 
where  within  the  limits  of  the  present  town  of  Plymouth,  nor  any  tradition 
of  its  making  the  rock  a  stepping-stone. 

We  prefer  to  believe  that  the  Pilgrims  meant  to  illustrate  the  landing 
from  the  Mayflower — the  event  emphasized  by  poets,  painters,  and  orators — 
as  marking  the  true  era  of  settlement ;  that  the  22d  of  December  was  intelli- 

1  This  party  consisted  of  eighteen  persons — viz.,  Miles  Standish,  John  Carver,  William  Bradford, 
Edward  Winslow,  John  Tilley,  Edward  Tilley,  John  Rowland,  Richard  Warren,  Steven  Hopkins, 
and  Edward  Doten.  Besides  these  were  two  seamen,  John  Alderton  and  Thomas  English.  Of 
the  ship's  company  were  Clark  and  Coppin,  two  of  the  master's  mates,  the  master-gunner,  and 
three  sailors.  This  little  band  of  discoverers  left  the  ship  at  anchor  at  Cape  Cod  Harbor  on  the 
^gth  of  December.  Mourt  calls  Alderton  and  English  "two  of  our  seamen, "in  distinction  from 
the  ship's  company  proper,  they  having  been  sent  over  by  the  undertakers,  in  the  service  of  the 
plantation. 


PLYMOUTH,  CLARK'S  ISLAND,  AND  DUXBURY.  291 

gently  adopted  by  those  best  able  to  judge  of  their  intentions;  and  that  an 
unbroken  custom  of  more  than  two  centuries  should  remain  undisturbed, 
even  if  it  had  originated  in  a  technical  error,  which  we  do  not  believe  was  the 
case.  "  This  rock,"  says  the  gifted  De  Tocqueville,  "  has  become  an  object  of 
veneration  in  the  United  States.  I  have  seen  bits  of  it  carefully  preserved  in 
several  towns  of  the  Union.  Does  not  this  sufficiently  show  that  all  human 
power  and  greatness  is  in  the  soul  of  man  ?  Here  is  a  stone  which  the  feet 
of  a  few  outcasts  pressed  for  an  instant,  and  the  stone  becomes  famous;  it  is 
treasured  by  a  great  nation;  its  very  dust  is  shared  as  a  relic.  And  what 
has  become  of  the  gate-ways  of  a  thousand  palaces?  Who  cares  for  them  ?" 

The  skeleton  of  a  body  was  here  before  them,  but,  as  Carlyle  says,  the  soul 
was  wanting  until  these  men  and  women  came.  Mr.  Sherley,  writing  to  Brad 
ford,  says,  "  You  are  the  people  that  must  make  a  plantation  and  erect  a  city 
in  those  remote  places  when  all  others  fail  and  return." 

I  do  not  find  such  conspicuous  examples  of  intolerance  among  the  Pil 
grims  as  afterward  existed  in  the  Bay  Colony.  Lyford  said  they  were  Jes 
uits  in  their  ecclesiastical  polity,  but  they  permitted  him  to  gather  a  separate 
church  and  perform  the  Episcopal  service  among  them.  Beyond  question, 
they  were  not  willing  to  see  the  hierarchy  from  which  they  had  fled  estab 
lish  itself  in  their  midst.  The  intrigues  of  such  men  as  Lyford  within  the 
colony,  and  Weston  in  the  company  at  home,  kept  back  the  remnant  of  their 
own  chosen  associates,  and  re-enforced  them  with  churchmen,  or  else  men  of 
no  particular  religion  or  helpfulness. 

In  November,  1621,  the  planters  received  an  accession  of  thirty-five  per 
sons  by  the  Fortune.1  It  was  the  custom  in  the  plantation  for  the  governor 
to  call  all  the  able-bodied  men  together  every  day,  and  lead  them  to  their 
work  in  the  fields  or  elsewhere.  On  Christmas-day  they  were  summoned  as 
usual,  but  most  of  the  new-comers  excused  themselves,  saying  it  was  against 
their  consciences  to  work  on  that  day.  The  governor  told  them  if  they  made 
it  a  matter  of  conscience  he  would  spare  them  until  they  were  better  inform 
ed.  He  then  led  away  the  rest.  When  those  who  had  worked  came  home 
at  noon  they  found  the  conscientious  observers  of  the  day  in  the  street,  at 
play ;  some  pitching  the  bar,  and  some  at  stool-ball  and  like  sports.  The 
governor  went  to  them,  took  away  their  implements,  and  told  them  it  was 
against  his  conscience  they  should  play  while  others  worked.  If  they  made 
keeping  the  day  a  matter  of  devotion,  they  must  keep  their  houses,  but  there 
must  be  no  gaming  or  reveling  in  the  streets.  Assuredly  there  was  some 
fun  in  William  Bradford,  governor. 


1  On  her  return  voyage  the  Fortune  was  seized  by  a  French  man-of-war,  Captain  Frontenan  de 
Pennart,  who  took  Thomas  Barton,  master,  and  the  rest  prisoners  to  the  Isle  of  Rhe,  plundering 
the  vessel  of  beaver  worth  five  hundred  pounds,  belonging  to  the  Pilgrims.  The  vessel  and  crew 
were  discharged  after  a  brief  detention. — "  British  Archives." 


292  THE  NEW  ENGLAND   COAST. 

>*  Hutchinson — after  all  the  abuse  of  him,  the  fairest  historian  as  to  what 
transpired  in  advance  of  the  Revolutionary  period — gives  the  Plymouth  col 
onists  credit  for  moderation.  When  Mrs.  Hatchinson  was  banished  by  Mas 
sachusetts,  she  and  her  adherents  applied  for  and  obtained  leave  to  settle  on 
Aquidneck,  then  acknowledged  to  be  within  the  Plymouth  patent.  Before 
this,  Roger  Williams,  who  had  been  their  minister,  was,  after  his  banishment 
from  Salem,  kindly  used,  though  requested  to  remove  beyond  their  limits,  for 
fear  of  giving  offense  to  the  Massachusetts  colony.  Many  Quakers  probably 
saved  their  lives  by  fleeing  to  Plymouth,  although  the  Pilgrims  detested 
their  worship  and  enacted  laws  against  them.  The  town  of  Swanzey1  was  al 
most  wholly  settled  by  Baptists. 

The  relations  of  the  Pilgrims  with  the  Indians  were  founded  in  right  and 
justice,  and  stood  on  broader  grounds  than  mere  policy.  This  is  shown  in 
the  unswerving  attachment  of  Massasoit,  the  fidelity  of  Samoset,  and  the 
friendship  of  Squanto.  The  appearance  of  Samoset  in  the  Pilgrim  village 
was  of  good  augury  to  the  colony,  and  is  worthy  of  a  more  appreciative  pen 
cil  than  has  yet  essayed  it. 

About  the  middle  of  March,  after  many  false  alarms  of  the  savages,  an  In 
dian  stalked  into  the  town.  Passing  silently  by  the  houses,  he  made  straight 
for  the  rendezvous.  I  think  I  see  the  matrons  and  maids  peeping  through 
their  lattices  at  the  dusky  intruder.  He  was  tall,  straight  of  limb,  and  come 
ly,  with  long  black  hair  streaming  down  his  bare  back,  for,  except  a  narrow 
girdle  about  his  loins,  he  was  stark  naked.  When  he  would  have  gone  into 
the  rendezvous  the  guard  intercepted  him.  He  was  armed  with  a  bow,  and 
in  his  quiver  were  only  two  arrows,  one  headed,  the  other  unheaded,  as  indi 
cating  the  pacific  nature  of  his  mission.  His  bearing  was  frank  and  fearless, 
as  became  a  sagamore.  "  Welcome,  Englishmen,"  he  said  to  the  by-standers, 
astounded,  as  well  they  might  be,  on  hearing  such  familiar  salutation  from  the 
lips  of  a  savage. 

The  first  thing  this  Indian  asked  for  was  beer.  The  Pilgrims  themselves 
preferred  it  to  water,  but  they  had  none  left;  so  they  feasted  him  on  good 
English  cheer,  and  gave  him  strong  waters  to  wash  it  down.  His  naked  body 
excited  astonishment,  and  a  compassionate  Pilgrim  cast  a  horseman's  cloak 
about  him.  Of  all  the  assembly  that  encircled  him,  Samoset  alone  seemed 
unconcerned.  The  settlers  had  seen  skulking  savages  on  the  hills,  but  they 
knew  not  what  to  make  of  this  fellow,  who  thus  dropped  in  on  them,  as  it- 
were,  for  a  morning  call.  Since  their  first  encounter  with  the  Nauset  Indians, 
they  expected  enmity,  and  not  friendship.  A  midnight  assault  in  their  un 
prepared  state  was  the  thing  most  dreaded.  Peace  or  war  seemed  to  reside 
in  the  person  of  this  Indian.  They  watched  him  narrowly.  At  night-fall  they 
hoped  he  would  take  his  leave;  but  he  showed  neither  disposition  to  depart, 

1  First  spelled  Swansea,  and  named  from  Swansea,  in  South  Wales. 


PLYMOUTH,  CLARK'S  ISLAND,  AND  DUXBURY.  293 

nor  distrust  at  beholding  himself  the  evident  object  of  mingled  fear  and  sus 
picion.  They  concluded  to  send  him  on  board  the  Mayflower  for  safe-keeping, 
and  Samoset  went  willingly  to  the  shallop ;  but  it  was  low  tide,  and  they 
could  not  reach  the  vessel.  So  they  lodged  him  in  Steven  Hopkins's  house. 
The  next  day  he  left  them  to  go  to  Massasoit,  and  they  finished  by  recogniz 
ing  him  as  a  friend,  sent  them  by  Heaven.  Samoset  was  the  Pemaquid  chief, 
of  whom  we  should  gladly  know  more  than  we  do.  His  communications  were 
of  importance  to  the  Pilgrims,  for  Bradford  admits  that  the  exact  description 
he  gave  them  of  his  own  country  and  of  its  resources  was  very  profitable  to 
them.  I  suppose  it  led  to  their  establishing  the  trading-houses  at  Penobscot 
and  Kennebec,  and  to  the  addition  of  the  strip  of  country  on  the  latter  river 
to  their  patent  of  1629,  afterward  enlarged  by  other  tracts  purchased  of  the 
Indians.  The  Pilgrims  preferred  trading  to  fishing,  and  no  subsequent  colony 
had  such  an  opportunity  to  enrich  themselves;  but  it  was  the  policy  of  the 
English  adventurers  to  keep  them  poor,  and  it  may  be  questioned  whether 
they  developed  the  shrewdness  in  traffic  for  which  their  descendants  have 
become  renowned. 

Samoset's  coming  paved  the  way  for  that  of  Massasoit,  who  made  his  en 
try  into  Plymouth  with  Indian  pomp,  in  March.  He  was  preceded  by  Samo 
set  and  Squanto,1  who  informed  the  settlers  that  the  king  was  close  at  hand. 
The  Pilgrims  were  then  assembled  under  arms  on  the  top  of  Burial  Hill,  en 
gaged  in  military  exercise,  and  witnessed  the  approach  of  Massasoit  with  his 
savage  retinue  of  sixty  warriors.  Here  were  two  representative  delegations 
of  the  Old  World  and  the  New;  the  English  in  steel  caps  and  corslets,  the 
Indians  in  wild  beasts'  skins,  paint,  and  feathers.  The  bearing  of  the  Chris 
tians  was  not  more  martial  than  that  of  the  savages. 

The  Pilgrims  stood  on  their  dignity,  and  waited.  At  the  king's  request, 
Edward  Winslow  went  out  to  hold  parley  with  him.  His  shining  armor  de 
lighted  the  Indian  sachem,  who  would  have  bought  it,  together  with  his 
sword,  on  the  spot,  but  Winslow  was  unwilling  to  part  with  either.  After 
mutual  salutations  and  some  talk  of  King  James,  Massasoit,  accompanied  by 
twenty,  proceeds  to  the  town,  leaving  Winslow  a  hostage  in  the  hands  of 
Quadeqtiina,  his  brother.  At  the  town  brook  Massasoit  is  met  by  Standish 
with  half  a  dozen  musketeers.  Here  are  more  grave  salutations,  and  then  the 
king  is  conducted  to  an  unfinished  house,  where  the  utmost  state  the  Pilgrims 
could  contrive  was  a  green  rug  and  three  or  four  cushions  placed  on  the  floor. 
There  is  a  roll  of  drum  and  blast  of  trumpet  in  the  street,  and  Bradford, 
attended  by  musketeers,  enters.  He  kisses  the  hand  of  the  New  England 
prince — "tho',"  says  Mourt,  "the  king  looked  greasily"  —  and  the  savage 


1  Sqnanto  was  one  of  the  Indians  kidnaped  by  Hunt,  and  the  last  surviving  native  inhabitant 
of  Plymouth.  He  had  lived  in  London  with  John  Slany,  merchant,  treasurer  of  the  Newfoundland 
Company. 


294  THE  NEW  ENGLAND  COAST. 

kisses  Bradford.  Then  they  sit.  The  governor  calls  for  a  stoup  of  strong 
waters,  which  he  quaffs  to  the  king,  after  the  manner  of  chivalry;  the  royal 
savage  drinks,  in  return,  a  great  draught,  that  makes  him  "  sweate  all  the  time 
after." 

' '  Give  me  the  cups, 

And  let  the  kettle  to  the  trumpet  speak, 

The  trumpet  to  the  cannoneer  without, 

The  cannons  to  the  heavens,  the  heaven  to  earth. 

'Now  the  king  drinks  to  Hamlet.'     Come,  begin." 

It  may  interest  some  readers  to  know  what  a  real  Indian  king  was  like. 
"  He  was,"  says  an  eye-witness,  "  a  very  lustie  man,  in  his  best  yeares,  an  able 
body,  grave  of  countenance,  and  spare  of  speech;  in  his  Attyre  little  or  noth 
ing  differing  from  the  rest  of  his  followers,  only  in  a  great  Chaiue  of  white 
bone  Beades  about  his  necke ;  and  at  it  behinde  his  necke  hangs  a  little  bagg 
of  Tobacco,  which  he  dranke  and  gave  us  to  drinke;  his  face  was  painted  with 
a  sad  red  like  murry,  and  oyled  both  head  and  face,  that  hee  looked  greasily. 
All  his  followers,  likewise,  were  in  their  faces  in  whole  or  in  part  painted, 
some  blacke,  some  red,  some  yellow,  and  some  white,  some  with  crosses,  and 
other  Antick  workes,  some  had  skins  on  them,  and  some  naked,  all  strong, 
tall,  all  men  in  appearance. 

"  One  thing  I  forgot ;  the  king  had  in  his  bosome,  hanging  to  a  string,  a 
great  long  knife.  He  marvelled  much  at  our  trumpet,  and  some  of  his  men 
would  sound  it  as  well  as  they  could."  Mourt  also  states  that  the  king  trem 
bled  with  fear  while  he  sat  by  the  governor,  and  that  the  savages  showed 
such  apprehension  of  the  fire-arms  that  the  governor  caused  them  to  be  re 
moved  during  the  conference. 

This  was  the  first  American  Congress  of  which  I  have  found  mention. 
The  Indians  knew  what  a  treaty  of  amity  meant.  They  needed  no  instruc 
tion  in  international  law.  I  believe  they  knew  the  Golden  Rule,  or  had  a 
strong  inkling  of  it.  That  was  a  convention  more  famous  than  the  Field  of 
the  Cloth  of  Gold,  though  there  were  but  a  green  rug  and  a  few  cushions. 
"The  peace,"  Bradford  writes,  "hath  now  (1645)  continued  this  twenty-four 
years."  "To  which  I  may  add,"  says  Prince,  "yea,  30  years  longer,  viz.,  to 
1675." 

The  Indians,  at  the  entertainment  given  them  in  Plymouth,  partook  heart 
ily  of  the  food  set  before  them,  but  they  could  not  be  induced  to  taste  spices 
or  condiments.  Salt  was  not  used  by  them.  Gosnold  regaled  them  with  a 
picnic  at  the  Vineyard,  of  which  John  Brereton  says, "  the  Indians  misliked 
nothing  but  our  mustard,  whereat  they  made  many  a  sowre  face."  I  doubt 
not  the  English  spread  it  thickly  on  the  meat,  even  at  the  hazard  of  good 
understanding. 

It  took  these  simple  natives  a  long  time  to  comprehend  the  English  meth 
od  of  correspondence.  They  could  not  penetrate  the  mystery  of  talking  pa- 


PLYMOUTH,  CLARK'S  ISLAND,  AND  DUXBURY.  295 

per.  There  is  a  story  of  an  Indian  sent  by  Governor  Dudley  to  a  lady  with 
some  oranges,  the  present  being  accompanied  with  a  letter  in  which  the  num 
ber  was  mentioned.  When  out  of  the  town,  the  Indian  put  the  letter  under 
a  stone,  and  going  a  short  distance  off,  ate  one  of  the  oranges.  His  astonish 
ment  at  finding  the  theft  discovered  was  unbounded.  V 

I  did  not  omit  a  ramble  among  the  wharves,  but  saw  little  that  would  in 
terest  the  reader.  When  you  are  there,  the  proper  thing  to  do  is  to  take  a 
boat  and  cross  the  bay  to  Clark's  Island  and  Duxbury.  We  sailed  over  the 
submerged  piles  at  the  end  of  Long  Wharf;  for  the  pier,  once  the  pride  of 
Plymouth,  was  fast  going  to  wreck.  The  tops  of  the  piles,  covered  with  sea 
weed  kept  in  motion  by  the  wraves,  bore  an  unpleasant  resemblance  to  drown 
ed  human  heads  bobbing  up  and  down.  As  we  passed  close  to  the  new  light 
house  off  Beach  Point,  the  boatman  remarked  that  when  it  was  being  placed 
in  position  the  caisson  slipped  in  the  slings,  and  dropped  to  the  bottom  near 
er  the  edge  of  the  channel  than  was  desirable. 

Having  wind  enough,  we  were  soon  up  with  Saquish  Head,  and  in  a  few 
minutes  more  were  fast  moored  to  the  little  jetty  at  Clark's  Island.  The 
presence  at  one  time  of  two  islands  in  Plymouth  Bay  is  fully  attested  by 
competent  witnesses.  Many  have  supposed  Brown's  Island,  a  shoal  seaward 
of  Beach  Point,  to  have  been  one  of  these,  tradition  affirming  that  the  stumps 
of  trees  have  been  seen  there.  One  author1  believes  Brown's  Island  to  have 
been  above  water  in  the  time  of  the  Pilgrims.  Champlain  locates  two  islands 
on  Duxbury  side,  with  particulars  that  leave  no  doubt  where  they  then  were. 
3Iourt  twice  mentions  them,  and  they  are  on  Blauw's  map  inside  the  Gurnet 
headland.  In  an  account  of  Ply  mouth  Harbor,  printed  near  the  close  of  the 
last  century,  two  islands  are  mentioned :  "  Clark's,  consisting  of  about  one 
hundred  acres  of  excellent  land,  and  Saquish,  which  was  joined  to  the  Gurnet 
by  a  narrow  piece  of  sand :  for  several  years  the  water  has  made  its  way 
across  and  insulated  it.  The  Gurnet  is  an  eminence  at  the  southern  extrem 
ity  of  the  beach,  on  which  is  a  light-house,  built  by  the  State."2 

Bradford  mentions  the  narrow  escape  of  their  pinnace  from  shipwreck  on 
her  return  from  Narraganset  in  1623,  by  "driving  on  y*  flats  that  lye  with 
out,  caled  Brown's  Hands."  Winthrop  relates  that  in  1635  "two  shallops, 
going,  laden  with  goods,  to  Connecticut,  were  taken  in  the  night  with  an  east 
erly  storm  and  cast  away  upon  Brown's  Island,  near  the  Gurriett's  Nose,  and 
the  men  all  drowned."  In  1806  it  was,  as  now,  a  shoal.  There  can  be  little 
dispute  as  to  Saquish  having  been  permanently  united  to  the  main-land  by 
those  shifting  movements  common  to  a  sea-coast  of  sand.3 


1  Winsor,  "History  of  Duxbury,"  p.  2G,  note. 

2  See  ante,  also  "Massachusetts  Historical  Collections, "vol.  ii.,  p.  5.     First  light-house  erected 
1763;  burned  1801. 

8  Saquish  is  the  Indian  for  clams.     They  are  of  extraordinary  size  in  Plymouth  and  Duxbury. 


296 


THE  NEW  ENGLAND  COAST. 


THE  GURNET. 

It  is  rather  remarkable  that,  with  a  sea-coast  exceeding  that  of  the  other 
New  England  colonies,  Plymouth  had  so  few  good  harbors.  The  beach,  the 
safeguard  of  Plymouth,  was  once  covered  on  the  inner  side  with  plum  and 
wild  cherry  trees,  pitch-pines,  and  undergrowth  similar  to  that  existing  on 
Cape  Cod  and  the  adjacent  islands.  The  sea  has,  in  great  storms,  made  a 
clean  breach  through  it,  digging  channels  by  which  vessels  passed.  There 
was  a  shocking  disaster  within  the  harbor  in  December,  1778,  when  the  pri 
vateer  brig  General  Arnold  broke  from  her  anchorage  in  the  Cow  Yard,1  and 
was  driven  by  the  violence  of  the  gale  upon  the  sand-flats.  Twenty-four 
hours  elapsed  before  assistance  could  be  rendered,  and  when  it  arrived  sev 
enty-five  of  the  crew  had  perished  from  freezing  and  exhaustion,  and  the  re 
mainder  were  more  dead  than  alive.2 

As  we  sailed  I  observed  shoals  of  herring  breaking  water,  or,  as  the  fisher 
men  word  it,  "scooting."  Formerly  they  were  taken  in  prodigious  quantity, 
and  used  by  the  Pilgrims  to  enrich  their  land.  Squarito  gave  them  the  hint 
of  putting  one  in  every  hill  of  corn.  His  manner  of  fishing  for  eels,  I  may 
add,  was  new  to  me.  He  trod  them  out  of  the  mud  with  his  feet,  and  caught 
them  in  his  hands.  I  was  surprised  at  the  number  of  seals  continually  rising 

1  An  anchorage  near  Clark's  Island,  so  called  from  a  cow-whale  having  been  taken  there. 

2  The  following  account  of  what  straits  light-keepers  have  been  subjected  to  in  coast-harbors 
during  the  past  winter  will  perhaps  be  read  with  some  surprise  by  those  acquainted  with  Plymouth 
only  in  its  summer  aspect :    "  On  Tuesday  evening,  February  9th,  1875,  the  United  States  revenue 
steamer  Gallatin  put  into  Plymouth  harbor  for  the  night,  to  avoid  a  noi-th-west  gale  blowing  out 
side.    On  the  morning  of  the  10th,  at  daylight,  when  getting  under  way,  Captain  Selden  discovered 
a  signal  of  distress  flying  on  Duxbury  Pier  Light.     The  light-house  was  so  surrounded  by  ice  that 
he  was  utterly  unable  to  reach  the  pier  with  a  boat;  the  captain,  therefore,  steamed  the  vessel 
through  the  ice  near  enough  to  converse  with  the  keeper,  and  found  that  he  had  had  no  communi 
cation  with  any  one  outside  of  the  light  since  December  22d,  1874  ;  that  his  fuel  and  water  were 
out ;  and  that  they  had  been  on  an  allowance  of  a  pint  of  water  a  day  since  February  6th,  1875. 
The  steamer  forced  her  way, to  within  some  fifty  or  seventy-five  yards  of  the  pier,  when  Lieutenants 
Weston  and  Clayton,  with  the  boats,  succeeded,  after  two  hours'  hard  work  cutting  through  the 
ice,  in  reaching  the  pier,  and  furnished  the  keeper  and  his  wife  with  plenty  of  wood  and  water." 


PLYMOUTH,  CLARK'S  ISLAND,  AND  DUXBURY. 


297 


within  half  a  cable's  length  of  the  boat,  at  which  they  curiously  gazed  with 
their  bright  liquid  eyes.  We  did  them  no  harm  as  ever  and  anon  one  pushed 
his  sleek  round  head  and  whiskered  muzzle  above  water.  Hundreds  of  them 
disport  themselves  here  in  summer,  though  in  winter  they  usually  migrate. 

It  is  only  a  little  way  from  the  landing-place  at  Clark's  Island  to  the  ven 
erable  Watson  mansion,  seen  embowered  among  trees  as  we  approached.1 
The  parent  house 
was  removed  from 
its  first  situation, 
rather  nearer  the 
water  than  it  now 
stands,  and  has 
incorporated  with 
itself  newer  addi 
tions,  till  it  is  quite 
lost  in  the  trans 
formation  it  has 
undergone.  The 
island  is  a  charm 
ing  spot,  and  the 
house  a  substan 
tial,  hospitable 
one.  I  did  not 
like  it  the  less  be 
cause  it  was  old,  and  seemed  to  carry  me  something  nearer  to  the  Pilgrims 
than  any  of  the  white  band  of  houses  I  saw  across  the  bay.  Ducks,  turkeys, 
geese,  and  fowls  lived  in  good-fellowship  together  in  the  barn-yard,  where 
were  piled  un  sea  worthy  boats;  and  store  of  old  lumber-drifts  the  sea  had  pro 
vided  against  the  winter.  The  jaw-bone  of  a  whale,  that  Mr.  Watson  said  he 
had  found  stranded  on  the  beach,  and  brought  home  on  his  back,  lay  bleach 
ing  in  the  front  yard.  I  may  have  looked  a  trifle  incredulous,  for  the  hale 
old  gentleman,  turned,  I  should  say,  of  three-score,  drew  himself  up  as  if  he 
would  say,  "  Sir,  I  can  do  it  again." 

After  showing  us  his  family  portraits,  ancient  furniture,  and  other  heir 
looms,  our  host  told  us  how  Sir  Edmund  Andros  had  tried  to  dispossess  his 
ancestors.  My  companion  and  myself  then  took  the  path  leading  to  Election 
Rock,  that  owes  its  name,  doubtless,  to  some  local  event.  It  is  a  large  boul 
der,  about  twelve  feet  high,  on  the  highest  point  of  the  island.  Two  of  its 

1  There  is  tradition  for  it  that  Edward  Dotey,  the  fighting  serving-man,  was  the  first  who  at 
tempted  to  land  on  Clark's  Island,  but  was  checked  for  his  presumption.  Elkanah  Watson  was 
one  of  the  three  original  grantees  of  the  island,  which  has  remained  in  the  family  since  1690.  Pre 
vious  to  that  time  it  belonged  to  the  town.  The  other  proprietors  were  Samuel  Lucas  and  George 
Morton. 


WATSON'S  HOUSE,  CLARK'S  ISLAND. 


298  THE  NEW  ENGLAND  COAST. 

faces  are  precipitous,  while  the  western  side  offers  an  easy  ascent.     At  the 

instance  of  the  Pilgrim   Society,  the  following  words,  from  "Mourt's  Re- 

lation,"  have  been  graven  on  its 

face: 

"On  the 

Sabboth  Day 

wee  rested. 

20  December, 

1620." 

As  is  well  known  to  all  who 
have  followed  the  fortunes  of  the 
little  band  of  eighteen — and  who 
has  not  followed  them  in  their 
toilsome  progress  in  search  of  a 
haven  of  rest? — their  shallop,  after 

ELECTION  ROCK,  CLARK'S  ISLAND. 

narrowly  escaping  wreck  among 

the  shoals  of  Saquish,  gained  a  safe  anchorage  under  the  shelter  of  one  of  the 
then  existing  islands.  It  is  probable  that  when  they  rounded  Saquish  Head 
they  found  themselves  in  smoother  water. 

The  gale  had  carried  away  their  mast  and  sail.  Their  pilot  proved  not 
only  ignorant  of  the  place  into  which  he  was  steering,  but  a  coward  when  the 
pinch  came.  They  were  on  the  point  of  beaching  the  shallop  in  a  cove  full 
of  breakers,  when  one  of  the  sailors  bid  them  about  with  her,  if  they  were 
men,  or  else  they  would  be  all  lost.  So  that  the  fortunes  of  the  infant  col 
ony  hung,  at  this  critical  moment,  on  the  presence  of  mind  of  a  nameless 
mariner. 

Cold,  hungry,  and  wet  to  the  skin,  they  remained  all  night  in  a  situation 
which  none  but  the  roughest  campaigner  would  know  how  rightly  to  estimate. 
The  Indians  had  met  them,  at  Eastham,  with  such  determined  hostility  that 
they  expected  no  better  reception  here.  Their  arms  were  wet  and  unserv 
iceable.  As  usual,  present  discomfort  triumphed  over  their  fears,  for  many 
were  so  much  exhausted  that  they  could  no  longer  endure  their  misery  on 
board  the  shallop.  Some  of  them  gained  the  shore,  where  with  great  diffi 
culty  they  lighted  a  fire  of  the  wet  wood  they  were  able  to  collect.  The  re 
mainder  of  the  party  were  glad  to  join  them  before  midnight;  for  the  wind 
shifted  to  north-west,  and  it  began  to  freeze.  They  had  little  idea  where 
they  were,  having  come  upon  the  land  in  the  dark.  It  was  not  until  day 
break  that  they  knew  it  to  be  an  island.  Surely,  these  were  times  to  try  the 
souls  of  men,  and  to  wring  the  selfishness  out  of  them. 

This  night  bivouac,  this  vigil  of  the  Pilgrims  around  their  blazing  camp- 
fire,  the  flames  painting  their  bronzed  faces,  and  sending  a  grateful  warmth 
into  benumbed  bodies,  was  a  subject  worthy  the  pencil  of  Rembrandt.  I 
doubt  that  they  dared  lay  their  armor  aside  or  shut  their  eyes  the  live-long 
night.  I  believe  they  were  glad  of  the  dawn  of  a  bright  and  glorious  Decem- 


PLYMOUTH,  CLARK'S  ISLAND,  AND  DUXBURY.  299 

ber  day.1  They  dried  their  buff  coats,  cleansed  their  arms  of  rust,  and  felt 
themselves  once  more  men  fit  for  action.  Then  they  shouldered  their  mus 
kets  and  reconnoitred  the  island.  Probably  the  eighteen  stood  on  the  sum 
mit  of  this  rock. 

I  found  Clark's  Island  to  possess  a  charm  exceeding  any  so-called  restora 
tion  or  monumental  inscription  —  the  charm  of  an  undisturbed  state.  No 
doubt  much  of  the  original  forest  has  disappeared,  and  Boston  has  yet  to  re 
turn  the  cedar  gate-posts  so  carefully  noted  by  every  succeeding  chronicler 
of  the  Old  Colony.  A  few  scrubby  originals  of  this  variety  yet,  however,  re 
main  ;  and  the  eastern  side  of  the  island  is  not  destitute  of  trees.  The  air 
was  swe'et  and  wholesome,  the  sea-breeze  invigorating.  In  the  quietude  of 
the  isle  the  student  may  open  his  history,  and  read  on  page  and  scene  the 
story  of  a  hundred  English  hearts  sorely  tried,  but  triumphing  at  last. 

History  has  not  told  us  how  the  eighteen  adventurous  Pilgrims  passed 
their  first  Sabbath  on  Clark's  Island.  One  writer  says  very  simply  "  wee 
rested;"  and  his  language  re-appears  on  the  tablet  of  imperishable  rock. 
Bradford  says,  on  the  "  last  day  of  ye  weeke  they  prepared  ther  to  keepe  ye 
Sabbath."  If  ever  they  had  need  of  rest  it  was  on  this  day;  and  if  ever  they 
had  reason  to  give  thanks  for  their  "  manifold  deliverances,"  now  was  the  oc 
casion.  They  would  hardly  have  stirred  on  any  enterprise  without  their 
Bible ;  and  probably  one  having  the  imprint  of  Geneva,  with  figured  verses, 
was  now  produced.  Bradford,  yet  ignorant  of  his  wife's  death,  may  have 
prayed,  and  Winslow  exhorted,  as  both  admit  they  often  did  in  the  church. 
Master  Carver  may  have  struck  the  key-note  of  the  Hundredth  Psalm,  "  the 
grand  old  Puritan  anthem;"  and  even  Miles  Standish  and  the  "saylers" 
three,  may  have  joined  in  the  forest  hymnal.3 

Hood,  in  his  "History  of  Music  in  New  England,"  speaking  of  the  early 
part  of  the  eighteenth  century,  says:  "Singing  psalms,  at  that  day,  had  not 
become  an  amusement  among  the  people.  It  was  used,  as  it  ever  ought  to 
be,  only  as  a  devotional  act.  So  great  was  the  reverence  in  which  their 
psalm-tunes  were  held,  that  the  people  put  off  their  hats,  as  they  would  in 
prayer,  whenever  they  heard  one  sung,  though  not  a  word  was  uttered." 

On  leaving  Clark's  Island  we  steered  for  Captain's  Hill.  By  this  time  the 
water  had  become  much  roughened,  or,  to  borrow  a  word  from  the  boatmen's 
vocabulary,  "choppy;"  I  should  have  called  it  hilly.  Our  attempt  to  land 
at  Duxbury  was  met  with  great  kicking,  bouncing,  and  squabbling  on  the 
part  of  the  boat,  which  seemed  to  like  the  chafing  of  the  wharf  as  little  as  we 
did  the  idea  of  a  return  to  Plymouth  against  wind  and  tide.  Quiet  persever- 


1  Saturday,  December  9th,  Old  Style. 

3  No  reasonable  doubt  can  be  entertained  that  the  Pilgrims'  first  religious  services  were  held  in 
Provincetown  Harbor,  either  on  board  the  Mayflower  or  on  shore.  They  were  not  the  men  and 
women  to  permit  several  Sabbaths  to  pass  by  without  devotional  exercises. 


300  THE  NEW  ENGLAND  COAST. 

ance,  however,  prevailed,  and,  after  clambering  up  the  piles,  we  stood  upon 
the  wharf.  A  short  walk  by  the  cart-way,  built  to  fetch  stone  from  the  pier 
to  the  monument,  brought  us  to  the  brow  of  the  hill. 

Captain's  Hill,  named  from  Captain  Miles  Standish,  its  early  possessor,  is  on 
a  peninsula  jutting  out  between  Duxbury  and  Plymouth  bays.  Its  surface 
is  smooth,  with  few  trees,  except  those  belonging  to  the  farm-houses  near  its 
base.  The  soil,  that  is  elsewhere  in  Duxbury  sandy  and  unproductive,  is  here 
rather  fertile,  which  accounts  for  its  having  become  the  seat  of  the  puissant 
Captain  Standish.  The  monument,  already  mentioned  as  in  progress,  had  ad 
vanced  as  high  as  the  foundations.  As  originally  planned,  it  was  to  be  built 
of  stones  contributed  by  each  of  the  New  England  States,  and  by  the  several 
counties  and  military  organizations  of  Massachusetts. 

Standish,  about  1632,  settled  upon  this  peninsula,  building  his  house  on  a 
little  rising  ground  south-east  of  the  hill  near  the  shore.  All  traces  that  are 
left  of  it  will  be  found  on  the  point  of  land  opposite  Mr.  Stephen  M.  Allen's 
house.  The  cellar  excavation  was  still  visible  when  I  visited  it,  with  some 
of  the  foundation-stones  lying  loosely  about.  Except  a  clump  of  young  trees 
that  had  become  rooted  in  the  hollows,  the  point  is  bare,  and  looks  any  thing 
but  a  desirable  site  for  a  homestead.  Plymouth  is  in  full  view,  as  is  also  the 
harbor's  open  mouth.  The  space  between  the  headland  on  which  the  house 
stood  and  Captain's  Hill  was  at  one  time  either  an  arm  of  the  sea,  or  else  in 
great  gales  the  water  broke  over  the  level,  forming  a  sort  of  lagoon.  Mr. 
Winsor,  in  his  "  History  of  Duxbury,"  says  the  sea,  according  to  the  tradi 
tions  of  the  place,  once  flowed  between  Standish's  house  and  the  hill.  The 
ground  about  the  house,  he  adds,  has  been  turned  up  in  years  past,  the  search 
being  rewarded  by  the  recovery  of  several  relics  of  the  old  inhabitant.3  The 
house  is  said  to  have  been  burned,  but  so  long  ago  that  even  the  date  has 
been  quite  forgotten.  On  this  same  neck  Elder  Brewster  is  believed  to  have 
lived,  but  the  situation  of  his  dwelling  is  at  best  doubtful. 

The  earliest  reference  I  have  seen  to  the  tradition  of  John  Alden  "popping 
the  question"  to  Priscilla  Mullins  for  his  friend,  Miles  Standish,  is  in  "Alden's 
Epitaphs,"  printed  in  1814.  No  mention  is  there  of  the  snow-white  bull, 

"Led  by  a  cord  that  was  tied  to  an  iron  ring  in  its  nostrils, 
Covered  with  crimson  cloth,  and  a  cushion  placed  for  a  saddle." 

John  Alden's  marriage  took  place,  it  is  supposed,  in  1621.  The  first  cattle 
brought  to  Plymouth  were  a  bull,  a  heifer,  and  "three  or  four  jades,"  sent  by 
Mr.  Sherley,  of  the  Merchant's  Association,  in  1624.  They  were  consigned  to 

1  The  first  substance  discovered  was  a  quantity  of  barley,  charred  and  wrapped  in  a  blanket. 
Ashes,  as  fresh  as  if  the  fire  had  just  been  extinguished,  were  found  in  the  chimney-place,  with 
pieces  of  an  andiron,  iron  pot/ and  other  articles.  There  were  discovered,  also,  a  gun-lock,  sickle, 
hammer,  whetstone,  and  fragments  of  stone  and  earthen  ware.  A  sword-buckle,  tomahawk,  brass 
kettle,  etc.,  with  glass  beads,  showing  the  action  of  intense  heat,  likewise  came  to  light. 


PLYMOUTH,  CLARK'S  ISLAND,  AND   DUXBURY.  301 

Winslow  and  Allerton,  to  be  sold.  The  tradition  of  the  embassy  of  Alden, 
and  of  the  incomparably  arch  rejoinder  of  Priscilla, "  Pry  thee,  John,  why  don't 
you  speak  for  yourself?"  was  firmly  believed  in  the  family  of  Alden,  where, 
along  with  that  of  the  young  cooper  having  first  stepped  on  the  ever-famous 
rock,  it  had  passed  from  the  mouth  of  one  generation  to  another,  without 
gainsaying. 

I  am  not  of  those  who  experience  a  thrill  of  joy  at  destroying  the  illusions 
of  long-hoarded  family  traditions.  What  of  romance  has  been  interwoven 
with  the  singularly  austere  lives  of  the  Puritans,  gracious  reader,  let  us  cher 
ish  and  protect.  The  province  of  the  Dryasdust  of  to-day  is  to  bewilder,  to 
deny  the  existence  of  facts  that  have  passed  without  challenge  for  centuries. 
The  farther  he  is  from  the  event,  the  nearer  he  accounts  himself  to  truth. 
Historic  accuracy  becomes  another  name  for  historic  anarchy.  Nothing  is 
settled.  The  grand  old  characters  he  strips  of  their  hard-earned  fame  can 
not  confront  him.  Would  they  might !  Columbus,  Tell,  Pocahontas,  are  im 
postors:  Ireson's  Ride  and  Standish's  Courtship  are  rudely  handled.  His 
tactics  would  destroy  the  Christian  religion.  Without  doubt  mere  historic 
truth  is  better  written  in  prose,  but  by  all  means  let  us  put  a  stop  to  the 
slaughter  of  all  the  first-born  of  New  England  poesy.  Let  us  have  Puritan 
lovers  and  sweethearts  while  we  may.  "What  is  your  authority?"  asked  a 
visitor  of  the  guide  who  was  relating  the  story  of  a  ruined  castle.  "  We  have 
tradition,  and  if  you  have  any  thing  better  we  will  be  glad  of  it." 

The  position  of  Standish  in  the  colony  was  in  a  degree  anomalous,  for  he 
was  neither  a  church  member  nor  a  devout  man.  But  the  Pilgrims,  who 
knew  on  occasion  how  to  smite  with  the  sword,  did  not  put  too  trifling  an 
estimate  upon  the  value  of  the  little  iron  man.  He  seems  to  have  deserved, 
as  he  certainly  received,  their  confidence,  as  well  in  those  affairs  arising  out 
of  religious  disorders  among  them  as  in  those  of  a  purely  military  character. 
When  wanted,  they  knew  where  he  was  to  be  found. 

After  his  fruitless  embassy  to  England,  Standish  seems  to  have  turned  his 
s\vord  into  a  pruning-hook,  leading  a  life  of  rural  simplicity,  perhaps  of  com 
parative  ease.  He  had,  as  the  times  went,  a  goodly  estate.  There  is  little 
doubt  he  was  something  "splenetic  and  rash,"  or  that  the  elders  feared  he 
would  bring  them  into  trouble  by  his  impetuous  temper.  He  was  of  a  race 
of  soldiers.1  Hubbard  calls  him  a  little  chimney  soon  fired.  Lyford  speaks 
of  him  as  looking  like  a  silly  boy,  and  in  utter  contempt.  The  Pilgrims  man 
aged  his  infirmities  with  address,  and  he  served  them  faithfully  as  soldier  and 
magistrate.  It  is  passing  strange  a  man  of  such  consequence  as  he  should 
sleep  in  an  unknown  grave. 

Near  the  foot  of  Captain's  Hill  is  an  old  gambrel-roofed  house,  with  the 

1  I  find  that  a  Captain  Standish,  who  is  called  a  great  commander,  a  captain  of  foot,  was  killed 
in  an  attack  by  Lord  Strange  on  Manchester,  England,  during  the  Civil  War,  1642. 


302 


THE  NEW  ENGLAND  COAST. 


date  of  1666  on  the  chimney.  At  the  entrance  the  stairs  part  on  each  side  of 
an  immense  chimney-stack.  The  timbers,  rough-hewn  and  exposed  to  view, 
are  bolted  with  tree-nails.  One  fire-place  would  have  contained  a  Yule-log 
from  any  tree  in  the  primeval  forest.  The  hearth  was  in  breadth  like  a  side 
walk.  On  the  doors  were  wooden  latches,  or  bobbins,  with  the  latch-string 
out,  as  we  read  in  nursery  tales.  The  front  of  the  house  was  covered  with 
climbing  vines,  and,  taken  altogether,  as  it  stood  out  against  the  dark  back 
ground  of  the  hill,  was  as  picturesque  an  object  as  I  have  seen  in  many  a 
day.1 

I  would  like  to  walk  with  you  two  miles  farther  on,  and  visit  the  old  Al- 
den  homestead,  the  third  that  has  been  inhabited  by  the  family  since  pilgrim 
John  built  by  the  margin  of  Eagle  Tree  Pond.  This  old  house,  erected  by 
Colonel  Alden,  grandson  of  the  first-comer  of  the  name,  is  still  in  the  same 
family,  and  would  well  repay  a  visit ;  but  time  and  tide  wait  for  us. 

Farther  on  I  have  rambled  over  ancient  Careswell,  the  seat  of  the  Wins- 
lows,  a  family  with  a  continuous  stream  of  history,  from  Edward,  the  govern 
or,  who  became  one  of  Cromwell's  Americans,  and  died  in  his  service  (you 
may  see  his  letters  in  the  ponderous  folios  of  Thurloe),  down  to.  the  winner  in 
the  sea-fight  between  the  Kearsarge  and  Alabama.  Beyond  is  the  mansion 
Daniel  Webster  inhabited  in  his  lifetime,  and  the  hill  where,  among  the  an 
cient  graves,  he  lies  entombed.  Here,  in  Kingston,  General  John 
Thomas,  of  the  Revolution,  lived. 

Another  military  chieftain,  little  less  renowned  than  Standish, 
was  Colonel  Benjamin  Church,  the  famous  Indian  fighter.  He  was 
Plymouth-born,  but  lived  some  time  in  Duxbury.  In  turning  over 
the  pages  of  Philip's  and  King  William's  wars,  we  meet  him  often 
enough,  and  always  giving  a  good  account  of  himself.  One  act  of 
the  Plymouth  authorities  during  Philip's  war  deserves  eternal  in 
famy.  It  drew  from  Church  the  whole-hearted  denunciation  of 
a  brave  man. 

During  that  war  Dartmouth  was  destroyed.  The  Dartmouth 
Indians  had  not  been  concerned  in  this  outrage,  and  after  much 
persuasion  were  induced  to  surrender  themselves  to  the  Plym 
outh  forces.  They  were  conducted  to  Plymouth.  The  Govern 
ment  ordered  all  of  them  to  be  sold  as  slaves,  and  they  were 
transported  out  of  the  country,  to  the  number  of  one  hundred 
and  sixty. 2 

I  despaired  of  being  able  to  match  this  act  of  treachery  with  any  con 
temporaneous  history.  But  here  is  a  fragment  that  somewhat  approaches  it 


CHUKCH  S 
SWORD. 


1  This  house  has  been  stated  to  have  been  built  in  part  of  materials  from  the  house  of  Captain 
Miles  Standish. 

2  Buvless's  "  New  Plymouth. " 


PLYMOUTH,  CLARK'S   ISLAND,  AND   DUXBURY.  303 

in  villainy,  In  1684  the  King  of  France  wrote  M.  de  la  Barre,  Governor  of 
New  France,  to  seize  as  many  of  the  Iroquois  as  possible,  and  send  them  to 
France,  where  they  were  to  serve  in  the  galleys,  in  order  to  diminish  the  tribe, 
which  was  warlike,  and  waged  war  against  the  French.  Many  of  them  were 
actually  in  the  galleys  of  Marseilles.1 

The  balance  is  still  in  our  favor.  In  1755  we  expatriated  the  entire 
French  population  of  Acadia.  Mr.  Longfellow  tells  the  story  graphically  in 
"Evangeline."  John  Winslow,  of  Marshtield,  was  the  instrument  chosen  by 
the  home  government  for  the  work.  It  was  conducted  with  savage  barbarity. 
Families  were  separated,  wives  from  husbands,  children  from  parents.  They 
were  parceled  out  like  cattle  among  the  English  settlements.  Their  aggre 
gate  number  was  nearly  two  thousand  persons,  thenceforth  without  home  or 
country.  One  of  these  outcasts,  describing  his  lot,  said,  "  It  was  the  hardest 
that  had  happened  since  our  Saviour  was  upon  earth."  The  story  is  true. 

Our  little  boat  worked  her  way  gallantly  back  to  Plymouth.  Though 
thoroughly  wet  with  the  spray  she  had  flung  from  her  bows,  I  was  not  ill- 
pleased  with  the  expedition.  Figuratively  speaking,  my  knapsack  was  pack 
ed,  my  staff  and  wallet  waiting  my  grasp.  With  the  iron  horse  that  stood 
panting  at  the  door  I  made  in  two  hours  the  journey  that  Winthrop,  Endi- 
cott,  and  Winslow  took  two  days  to  accomplish.  Certainly  I  found  Plym 
outh  much  changed.  The  Pilgrims  would  hardly  recognize  it,  though  now, 
as  in  centuries  before  their  coming, 

"The  waves  that  brought  them  o'er 
Still  roll  in  the  bay,  and  throw  their  spray, 
As  they  break  along  the  shore." 

1  "Massachusetts  Archives." 


PROVINCETOWN   FROM   THE   HILLS. 


CHAPTER  XIX. 

PROVIlSrCETOWN. 
"A  man  may  stand  there  and  put  all  America  behind  him." — THOREATT. 

AS  it  was  already  dark  when  I  arrived  in  Provincetown,  I  saw  only  the 
glare  from  the  lantern  of  Highland  Light  in  passing  through  Truro,  and 
the  gleaming  from  those  at  Long  Point  and  Wood  End,  before  the  train  drew 
up  at  the  station.  It  having  been  a  rather  busy  day  with  me  (I  had  embark 
ed  at  Nantucket  in  the  morning,  idled  away  a  few  hours  at  Vineyard  Haven, 
and  rested  as  many  at  Cohasset  Narrows),  it  will  be  easily  understood  why  I 
left  the  investigation  of  my  whereabouts  to  the  morrow.  My  wants  were  at 
this  moment  reduced  to  a  bed,  a  pair  of  clean  sheets,  and  plenty  of  blankets; 
for  though  the  almanac  said  it  was  July  in  Provincetown,  the  night  breeze 
blowing  freshly  was  strongly  suggestive  of  November. 

It  was  Swift,  I  think,  who  said  he  never  knew  a  man  reach  eminence  who 
was  not  an  early  riser.  Doubtless  the  good  doctor  was  right.  But,  then,  if 
he  had  lodged  as  I  lodged,  and  had  risen  as  I  did,  two  mortal  hours  before 
breakfast-time,  he  might  have  allowed  his  precept  to  have  its  exceptions.  I 
devoted  these  hours  to  rambling  about  the  town. 

Though  not  more  than  half  a  hundred  miles  from  Boston,  as  the  crow 
flies,  Cape  Cod  is  regarded  as  a  sort  of  terra  incognita  by  fully  half  of  New 
England.  It  has  always  been  considered  a  good  place  to  emigrate  from, 
rather  than  as  offering  inducements  for  its  young  men  and  women  to  re 
main  at  home ;  though  no  class  of  New  Englanders,  I  should  add,  are  more 
warmly  attached  to  the  place  of  their  nativity.  The  ride  throughout  the 
Cape  affords  the  most  impressive  example  of  the  tenacity  with  which  a  pop 
ulation  clings  to  locality  that  has  ever  come  under  my  observation.  To  one 


PBOVINCETOWN. 


305 


accustomed  to  the  fertile  shores  of  Xarraganset  Bay  or  the  valley  of  the  Con 
necticut,  the  region  between  Sandwich,  where  you  enter  upon  the  Cape,  and 
Orleans,  where  you  reach  the  bend  of  the  fore-arm,  is  bad  enough,  though  no 
desert.  Beyond  this  is  simply  a  wilderness  of  sand. 

The  surface  of  the  country  about  Brewster  and  Orleans  is  rolling  prairie, 
barren,  yet  thinly  covered  with  an  appearance  of  soil.  Stone  walls  divide  the 
fields,  but  from  here  down  the  Cape  you  will  seldom  see  a  stone  of  any  size  in 
going  thirty  miles.  My  faith  in  Pilgrim  testimony  began  to  diminish  as  I 
looked  on  all  sides,  and  in  vain,  for  a  "  spit's-depth  of  excellent  black  earth," 
such  as  they  tell  of.  It  has,  perchance,  been  blown  away,  or  buried  out  of 
sight  in  the  shiftings  constantly  going  on  here.  Eastham,  Wellfleet,  and 


COIIASSET    NAKKOWS. 

Truro  grow  more  and  more  forbidding,  as  you  approach  the  Ultima  Thule,  or 
land's  end.1 

Mr.  Thorcau,  who  has  embodied  the  results  of  several  excursions  to  the 
Cape  in  some  admirable  sketches,  calls  it  the  bared  and  bended  arm  of  Massa 
chusetts.  Mr.  Everett  had  already  used  the  same  figure.  To  me  it  looks  like 
a  skinny,  attenuated  arm  thrust  within  a  stocking  for  mending — the  bony 
elbow  at  Chatham,  the  wrist  at  Truro,  and  the  half-closed  fingers  at  Prov- 
incetown.  It  seems  quite  down  at  the  heel  about  Orleans,  and  as  if  much 
darning  would  be  needed  to  make  it  as  good  as  new.  It  was  something  to 
conceive,  and  more  to  execute,  such  a  tramp  as  Thoreau's,  for  no  one  ought  to 

1  There  is  a  well-defined  line  of  demarkation  between  the  almost  uninterrupted  rock  wall  of 
the  north  coast  and  the  sand,  which,  beginning  in  the  Old  Colony,  in  Scituate,  constitutes  Cape 
Cod;  and,  if  we  consider  Nantucket,  Martha's  Vineyard,  and  Long  Island  as  having  at  some  pe 
riod  formed  the  exterior  shores,  the  almost  unbroken  belt  of  sand  continues  to  Florida.  This  line 
is  so  little  imaginary  that  it  is  plain  to  see  where  granite  gives  place  to  sand ;  and  it  is  sufficiently 
curious  to  arrest  the  attention  even  of  the  unscientific  explorer. 

20 


306  THE  NEW  ENGLAND  COAST. 

attempt  it  who  can  not  rise  superior  to  his  surroundings,  and  shake  off  the 
gloom  the  weird  and  wide-spread  desolateness  of  the  landscape  inspires.  I 
would  as  lief  have  marched  with  Napoleon  from  Acre,  by  Mount  Carmel, 
through  the  moving  sands  of  Tentoura. 

The  resemblance  of  the  Cape  to  a  hook  appears  to  have  struck  navigators 
quite  early.  On  old  Dutch  maps  it  is  delineated  with  tolerable  accuracy,  and 
named  "Staaten  Hoeck,"  and  the  bay  inclosed  within  the  bend  of  it  "Staaten 
Bay."  Massachusetts  Bay  is  "  Koord  Zee,"  and  Cape  Malabar  "Vlaeke 
Hoeck."  Milford  Haven  appears  about  where  Eastham  is  now  located.  On 
the  earliest  map  of  Champlain  the  extremity  of  the  Cape  is  called  "C.  Blanc," 
or  the  White  Cape.1  Mather  says  of  Cape  Cod,  he  supposes  it  will  never  lose 
the  name  "till  swarms  of  codfish  be  seen  swimming  on  the  highest  hills." 

This  hook,  though  a  sandy  one,  caught  many  a  school  of  migratory  fish, 
and  even  whales  found  themselves  often  embayed  in  the  bight  of  it,  on  their 
way  south,  until,  from  being  so  long  hunted  down,  they  learned  to  keep  a 
good  offing.  It  also  caught  all  the  southerly  drift  along  shore,  such  as  stray 


HIGHLAND   LIGHT,  CAPE    COD. 

ships  from  France  and  England.  Bartholomew  Gosnold  and  John  Brereton 
were  the  first  white  men  to  land  on  it.  De  Monts,  Champlain,  De  Poutrin- 
court,  Smith,  and  finally  the  Forefathers,  were  brought  up  and  turned  back 
by  it. 

Bradford,  under  date  of  1620,  writes  thus  in  his  journal :  "A  word  or  two 
by  ye  way  of  this  Cape  :  it  was  thus  first  named  (Cape  Cod)  by  Captain  Gos 
nold  and  his  company,  An0: 1602,  and  after  by  Capten  Smith  was  caled  Cape 
James;  but  it  retains  ye former  name  amongst  sea-men.  Also  y*  pointe  which 


1  "Lequel  nous  nommjimes  C.  Blanc  pour  ce  que  c'estoient  sables  et  dunes  qui  pavoissent 
ainsi." 


PROVINCETOWN.  307 

first  shewed  those  dangerous  shoulds  unto  them,  they  called  Point  Care,  and 
Tucker's  Terrour;1  but  ye  French  and  Dutch,  to  this  day,  call  it  Malabarr,  by 
reason  of  those  perilous  shoulds,  and  ye  losses  they  have  suffered  their." 

Notwithstanding  what  Bradford  says,  the  name  ofMallebarre  is  affixed  to 
the  extreme  point  of  Cape  Cod  on  early  French  maps.  In  Smith's  "New  En 
gland  "  is  the  following  description : 

"Cape  Cod  is  the  next  presents  itselfe,  which  is  onely  a  headland  of  high 
hills  of  sand,  overgrowne  with  shrubbie  pines,  hurts,  and  such  trash,  but  an 
excellent  harbor  for  all  weathers.  The  Cape  is  made  by  the  maine  sea  on 
the  one  side  and  a  great  Bay  on  the  other,  in  forme  of  a  sickle;  on  it  doth 
inhabit  the  people  of  Paw  met;  and  in  the  bottome  of  the  Bay,  the  people  of 
Chawum.  Towards  the  south  and  south-west  of  this  Cape  is  found  a  long 
and  dangerous  shoale  of  sands  and  rocks.  But  so  farre  as  I  encircled  it,  I 
found  thirtie  fadom  water  aboard  the  shore  and  a  strong  current,  which  makes 
mee  thinke  there  is  a  channel  about  this  Shoale,  where  is  the  best  and  great 
est  fish  to  be  had,  Winter  and  Summer,  in  all  that  Countrie.  But  the  Salvages 
say  there  is  no  channel,  but  that  the  shoales  beginne  from  the  maine  at  Paw- 
met  to  the  ile  of  Nausit,  and  so  extends  beyond  their  knowledge  into  the  sea." 

The  historical  outcome  of  the  Cape  is  in  the  early  navigations,  and  in  the 
fact  that  Provincetown  was  the  harbor  entered  by  the  Forefathers.  The  first 
land  they  saw,  after  Devon  and  Cornwall  had  sunk  in  the  sea,  was  this  sand 
bar,  for  it  is  nothing  else.  It  appeared  to  their  eager  eyes,  as  it  will  proba 
bly  never  again  be  seen,  wooded  down  to  the  shore.  Whales,  that  they  had 
not  the  means  of  taking,  disported  around  them.  They  dropped  anchor  three- 
quarters  of  a  mile  from  shore,  and,  in  order  to  land,  were  forced  to  wade  a 
"  bow  shoot,"  by  which  many  coughs  and  colds  were  caught,  and  a  founda 
tion  for  the  winter's  sickness  laid.  The  first  landing  was  probably  on  Long 
Point.  The  men  set  about  discovery ;  for  the  master  had  told  them,  with  a 
sailor's  bluntness,  he  would  be  rid  of  them  as  soon  as  possible.  The  women 
went  also  to  shore  to  wash,  thus  initiating  on  Monday,  November  -^fd,  the 
great  New  England  washing-day. 

Were  there  to  be  a  day  of  general  observance  in  New  England  commem 
orative  of  the  landing  of  the  Pilgrims,  it  should  be  that  on  which  they  first 
set  foot  on  her  soil  at  Cape  Cod;  the  day,  too.  on  which  the  compact  was 
signed.3  Whatever  of  sentiment  attached  to  the  event  should,  it  would  seem, 
be  consecrated  to  the  very  spot  their  feet  first  pressed.  There  is  yet  time  to 
rescue  the  day  from  unaccountable  and  unmerited  neglect. 

On  the  map  of  Cyprian  Southack  a  thoroughfare  is  delineated  from  Mas 
sachusetts  Bay  to  the  ocean  at  Eastham,  near  Sandy  Point.  His  words  are  : 

:  Named  by  Captain  Gosnold,  on  account  of  the  expressed  fears  of  one  of  his  company. 

a  Being  the  list  of  November,  it  would  fall  quite  near  to  the  day  usually  set  apart  for  Thanks 
giving  in  New  England,  which  is  merely  an  arbitrary  observance,  commemorative  of  no  particular 
occurrence. 


308  THE  NEW  ENGLAND  COAST. 

"The  place  where  I  came  through  with  a  whale-boat,  April  26th,  1717,  to  look 
after  Bellame  the  pirate."  I  have  never  seen  this  map,  which  Douglass  pro 
nounces  "  a  false  and  pernicious  sea-chart." 

From  its  barring  their  farther  progress,  Cape  Cod  was  well  known  to  the 
discoverers  of  the  early  part  of  the  seventeenth  century.  According  to  Les- 
carbot,  Poutrincourt  spent  fifteen  days  in  a  port  on  the  south  side.  It  had 
been  formally  taken  possession  of  in  the  name  of  the  French  king.  The  first 
conflict  between  the  whites  and  natives  occurred  there;  and  in  its  sands  were 
interred  the  remains  of  the  first  Christian  who  died  within  the  ancient  limits 
of  New  England.1 

The  assault  of  the  natives  on  De  Poutrincourt  is  believed  to  have  occur 
red  at  Chatham,  ironically  named  by  the  French  Port  Fortune,  in  remem 
brance  of  their  mishaps  there.  It  was  the  very  first  collision  recorded  be 
tween  Europeans  and  savages  in  New  England.  Five  of  De  Poutrincourt's 
men  having  slept  on  shore  contrary  to  orders,  and  without  keeping  any 
watch,  the  Indians  fell  on  them  at  day-break,  October  15th,  1606,  killing  two 
outright.  The  rest,  who  were  shot  through  and  through  with  arrows,  ran 
down  to  the  shore,  crying  out,  "Help!  they  are  murdering  us !"  the  savages 
pursuing  with  frightful  whoopings. 

Hearing  these  outcries  and  the  appeal  for  help,  the  sentinel  on  board  the 
bark  gave  the  alarm:  "Aux  armesf  they  are  killing  our  people!"  Roused 
by  the  signal,  those  on  boand  seized  their  arms,  and  ran  on  deck,  without 
taking  time  to  dress  themselves.  Fifteen  or  sixteen  threw  themselves  into 
the  shallop,  without  stopping  to  light  their  matches,  and  pushed  for  the  shore. 
Finding  they  could  not  reach  it  on  account  of  an  intervening  sand-bank,  they 
leaped  into  the  water  and  waded  a  musket-shot  to  land.  De  Poutrincourt, 
Champlain,  Daniel  Hay,  Robert  Grave  the  younger,  son  of  Du  Pont  Grave, 
and  the  younger  Poutrincourt,  with  their  trumpeter  and  apothecary,  were  of 
the  party  that  rushed  pell-mell,  almost  stark  naked,  upon  the  savages. 

The  Indians,  perceiving  the  rescuing  band  within  a  bow-shot  of  them,  took 
to  flight.  It  was  idle  to  pursue  those  nimble-footed  savages;  so  the  French 
men  brought  their  dead  companions  to  the  foot  of  the  cross  they  had  erected 
on  the  preceding  day,  and  there  buried  them.  While  chanting  the  funeral 
prayers  and  orisons  of  the  Church,  the  natives,  from  a  safe  distance,  shouted 
derisively  and  danced  to  celebrate  their  treason.  After  their  funeral  rites 
were  ended  the  French  voyagers  silently  returned  on  board. 

In  a  few  hours,  the  tide  being  so  low  as  to  prevent  the  whites  from  land 
ing,  the  natives  again  appeared  on  the  shore.  They  threw  down  the  cross, 
disinterred  the  bodies  of  the  slain  Frenchmen,  and  stripped  them  before  the 
eyes  of  their  exasperated  comrades.  Several  shots  were  fired  at  them  from 

1  One  of  De  Monts's  men  ("wrc  charpentier  Halom")  was  killed  here  in  1605  by  the  natives. 
In  attempting  to  recover  a  kettle  one  of  them  had  stolen,  he  was  transfixed  with  arrows. 


PROVINCETOWN. 


309 


the  bronze  gun  on  board,  the  natives  at  every  discharge  throwing  themselves 
flat  on  their  faces.  As  soon  as  the  French  could  land,  they  again  set  up  the 
cross,  and  reinterred  the  dead.  The  natives,  for  the  second  time,  fled  to  a  dis 
tance.1 

Provincetown  was  originally  part  of  Truro.  Its  etymology  explains  that 
its  territory  belonged  to  the  province  of  Massachusetts.  The  earliest  inhab 
itants  had  no  other  title  than  possession,  and  their  conveyance  is  by  quit 
claim.  For  many  years  the  place  experienced  the  alternations  of  thrift  and 
decay,  being  at  times  well-nigh  deserted.  In  1749,  says  Douglass,  in  his 
"  Summary,"  the  town  consisted  of  only  two  or  three  settled  families,  two  or 
three  cows,  and  six  to  ten  sheep.  The  houses  formerly  stood  in  one  range, 
without  regularity,  along  the  beach,  with  the  drying -flakes  around  them. 


m 


WASHING    FISH. 


Fishing  vessels  were  run  upon  the  soft  sand,  and  their  cargoes  thrown  into 
the  water,  where,  after  being  washed  free  from  salt,  the  fish  were  taken  up 
and  carried  to  the  flakes  in  hand- barrows.  Cape  Cod  Harbor,  by  which 
name  it  is  also  familiar  to  the  readers  of  Pilgrim  chronicles,  was  the  earliest 
name  of  Provincetown. 

The  place  has  now  lost  the  peculiar  character  it  owed  to  the  windmills  on 


1  Lesoarbot  nclds  that  the  natives,  turning  their  backs  to  the  vessel,  threw  the  sand  with  both 
hands  toward  them  from  between  their  buttocks,  in  derision,  yelling  like  wolves. 


310  THE  NEW  ENGLAND  COAST. 

the  sandy  heights  above  the  town  and  the  salt-works  on  the  beach  before  it. 
The  streets,  described  by  former  writers  as  impassable,  by  reason  of  the  deep 
sand,  I  found  no  difficulty  in  traversing.  What  with  an  admixture  of  clay, 
and  a  top-dressing  of  oyster-shells  and  pebble,  brought  from  a  distance,  they 
have  managed  to  make  their  principal  thoroughfares  solid  enough.  Step 
aside  from  these,  if  you  would  know  what  Provincetown  was  like  in  the 
past. 

If  the  streets  were  better  than  I  had  thought,  the  houses  were  far  bet 
ter.  The  great  number  of  them  were  of  wood,  looking  as  most  New  En 
gland  houses  look — ready  for  the  torch.  They  usually  had  underpinnings  of 
brick,  instead  of  being,  as  formerly,  built  on  posts,  in  order  that  the  sand  might 
blow  underneath  them.  There  were  willows,  poplars,  locusts,  and  balm  of 
Gilead,  standing  about  in  odd  corners,  and  of  good  size.  I  saw  a  few  sickly 
fruit-trees  that  appeared  dying  for  lack  of  moisture  ;  and  some  enterprising 
citizens  were  able  to  make  a  show  of  lilacs,  syringas,  pinks,  and  geraniums  in 
their  front  yards.  I  talked  with  them,  and  saw  that  the  unremitting  struggle 
for  life  that  attended  the  growth  of  these  few  simple  flowers  seemed  to  increase 
their  love  for. them,  and  enlarge  their  feeling  for  what  was  beautiful.  All 
the  earth  they  have  is  imported.  I  called  to  mind  those  Spanish  vineyards, 
where  the  peasant  carries  a  hamper  of  soil  up  the  sunny  slopes  of  the  mount 
ain-sides,  and  in  some  crevice  of  the  rocks  plants  his  vine. 

There  are  two  principal  streets  in  Provincetown.  One  of,  I  should  imag 
ine,  more  than  a  mile  in  length,  runs  along  the  harbor;  the  other  follows  an 
elevated  ridge  of  the  sand-hills,  and  is  parallel  with  the  first.  A  plank-walk 
is  laid  on  one  side  of  the  avenue  by  the  shore,  the  other  side  being  occupied 
by  stores,  fish-houses,  and  wharves.  No  sinister  meaning  is  attached  to  walk 
ing  the  plank  in  Provincetown ;  for  what  is  the  whole  Cape  if  not  a  gang 
plank  pushed  out  over  the  side  of  the  continent? 

Where  the  street  on  the  ridge  is  carried  across  gaps  among  the  hills,  the 
retaining  walls  were  of  bog-peat,  which  was  also  laid  on  the  sides  of  those 
hills  exposed  to  the  force  of  the  wind.  Whortleberry,  bayberry,  and  wild 
rose  were  growing  out  of  the  interstices.  They  flourish  as  well  as  when  the 
Pilgrims  were  here,  though  all  the  primitive  forest  disappeared  long  ago.  I 
ascended  the  hill  on  which  the  town-hall  building  stands.  You  must  go  up 
the  town  road,  or  break  the  law,  as  I  saw,  by  the  straggling  footpaths,  the, 
youngsters  were  in  the  habit  of  doing.  Read  sand  for  scoria?,  and  the  fate  of 
Herculaneum  seems  impending  over  Provincetown.  The  safeguards  taken  to 
prevent  the  hills  blowing  down  upon  it  impresses  the  stranger  with  a  sense 
of  insecurity,  though  the  inhabitants  do  not  seem  much  to  mind  it.  I  have 
heard  that  in  exposed  situations  on  the  Cape  window-glass  becomes  opaque 
by  reason  of  the  frequent  sand-blasts  rattling  against  the  panes. 

On  the  hill  was  formerly  a  windmill,  having  the  flyers  inside,  so  resem 
bling,  say  the  town  annalists,  a  lofty  tower.  It  was  a  famous  landmark  for 


PROVINCETOWN.  311 

vessels  making  the  port.     The  chart-makers  have  now  replaced  it  with  the 
town  hall,  and  every  mariner  steering  for  Provincetown  has  an  eye  to  it. 

The  harbor  is  completely  land-locked.  There  is  good  anchorage  for  ves 
sels  of  the  largest  class.  Oft-times  it  is  crowded  with  shipping  seeking  a  ha 
ven  of  refuge.  This  morning  there  were  perhaps  fifty  sail,  of  every  kind  of 
craft.  An  inward-bound  vessel  must  steer  around  every  point  of  the  compass 
before  the  anchor  is  let  go  in  safety.  In  the  Revolution  the  port  was  made 
use  of  by  the  British  squadrons,  to  refit,  and  procure  water.1  The  tide  flows 
on  the  bay  side  of  the  Cape  about  twenty  feet,  while  at  the  back  of  it  there 
is  a  flow  of  only  five  or  six  feet. 

The  town  is  of  extreme  length,  compared  with  its  breadth,  being  con 
tracted  between  the  range  of  high  sand-hills  behind  it  and  the  beach.  It  lies 
fronting  the  south-east,  bordering  the  curve  of  the  shore,  which  sweeps  grand 
ly  around  half  the  circumference  of  a  circle  on  the  bay  side.  In  one  direction 
extends  the  long  line  of  shore.  If  Boston  be  your  starting-point,  you  must 
travel  a  hundred  and  twenty  miles  to  get  fifty ;  and,  by  the  time  you  arrive 
at  the  extremity  of  the  Cape,  should  be  able  to  box  the  compass.  Looking 
south,  Long  Point  terminates  the  land  view.  Following  with  the  eye  the 
outline  of  the  hook,  it  rests  an  instant  on  the  shaft  of  the  light-house  at 
Wood  End,  the  extreme  southerly  point  of  the  Cape.  Thence  the  coast  trends 
north-west  as  far  as  Race  Point,  which  is  shut  out  from  view  by  intervening 
hills.  Race  Point  is  the  outermost  land  of  the  Cape.  All  these  names  are 
well  known  to  mariners,  the  world  over. 

The  shores  are  bordered  with  dangerous  bars  and  shallows.  As  shipping 
could  not  get  up  to  the  town,  the  town  has  gone  off"  to  it,  in  the  shape  of  a 
wharf  of  great  length.  Our  Pilgrim  ancestors  had  to  wade  a  "bow  shoot" 
to  get  on  dry  land.  A  resident  told  me  that  with  fishing-boots  on  I  could 
cross  to  the  head  of  Herring  Cove  at  low  tide.  Assuredly,  it  is  one  of  the 
most  wonderful  of  havens,  and  little  likely  to  be  dispensed  with,  even  if  the 
vexed  question  of 

"A  way  for  ships  to  shape, 
Instead  of  winding  round  the  Cape 
A  short-cut  through  the  collar," 

be  answered  by  a  ship-canal  from  Barnstable  to  Buzzard's  Bay.3 

On  the  summit  of  Town  Hill  you  are  almost  astride  the  Cape,  having  the 
Atlantic  on  one  side,  and  Massachusetts  Bay  in  full  view  on  the  other.  The 
port  is  not  what  it  was  when  some  storm-tossed  bark,  in  accepting  its  shel 
ter,  was  "the  town  talk  for  months.  Ships  come  and  go  by  scores  and  hun- 


1  Hubbard  relates  a  terrific  storm  here.     See  "New  England,"  p.  644.     In  1813  there  was  a 
naval  engagement  at  Provincetown. 

2  General  Knox  was  interested  in  this  project.     Lemuel  Cox,  the  celebrated  bridge  architect, 
was  engaged  in  cutting  it.  ......  -. 


31  '2  THE   NEW  ENGLAND   COAST. 

dreds,  folding  their  wings  and  settling  down  on  the  water  like  weary  sea 
gulls. 

With  an  outward  appearance  of  prosperity,  I  found  the  people  bemoaning 
the  hard  times.  Taxes,  they  said,  were  twenty  dollars  in  the  thousand,  and 
only  ten  at  Wareham ;  fish  were  scarce,  and  prices  low,  too,  though  as  to 
the  last  item  consumers  think  otherwise.  The  fishermen  I  saw  were  burly, 
athletic  fellows,  apparently  not  more  thrifty  than  their  class  everywhere. 
They  are  averse  to  doing  any  thing  else  than  fish,  and,  if  the  times  are  bad, 
are  content  to  potter  about  their  boats  and  fishing -gear  till  better  days, 
much  as  they  would  wait  for  wind  and  tide.  If  they  can  not  go  fishing  they 
had  as  lief  do  nothing,  though  want  threatens. 

The  boys  take  to  the  water  by  instinct.  I  saw  one  adrift  in  a  boat  with 
out  oars,  making  his  way  to  land  by  tilting  the  side  of  the  dory.  They  go  to 
the  fishing-banks  with  their  fathers,  and  can  hand,  reef,  and  steer  with  an  old 
salt.  One  traveler  tells  of  a  Provincetown  cow-boy  who  captured  and  killed 
a  blackfish  he  descried  near  the  shore.  As  soon  as  they  had  strength  to  pull 
in  a  fish,  they  were  put  on  board  a  boat. 

I  noticed  the  familiar  names  that  have  been  transplanted  and  thriven  ev 
erywhere.  Those  of  Atwood,  Nickerson,  Newcomb,  Rich,  Ryder,  Snow,  and 
Doane  have  the  Cape  ring  about  them.  In  general  they  are  "  likely  "  men, 
as  the  phrase  here  is,  getting  on  as  might  be  expected  of  a  people  who  liter 
ally  cast  their  bread  upon  the  waters,  and  live  on  a  naked  crust  of  earth  that 
the  sea  is  forever  gnawing  and  growling  at.  The  girls  are  pretty.  I  say  it 
on  the  authority  of  an  expert  in  such  matters  who  accompanied  me.  Not  all 
are  sandy-haired. 

There  is  a  strong  dash  of  humor  about  these  people.  They  are  piquant 
Capers,  dry  and  sharp  as  the  sand.  One  of  them  was  relating  that  he  had 
once  watched  for  so  long  a  time  that  he  finally  fell  asleep  while  crossing  the 
street  to  his  boarding-house,  and  on  going  to  bed  had  not  waked  for  twenty- 
four  hours.  "Wa'al,"  said  an  old  fellow,  removing  a  short  pipe  from  between 
his  lips,  "  you  was  jest  a-cannin'  on  it  up,  warn't  ye  ?" 

There  is  quite  a  colony  of  Portuguese  in  Provincetown.  In  my  rambles 
I  met  with  a  band  of  them  returning  from  the  swamp  region  back  of  the 
town.  They  looked  gypsy-like  with  their  swarthy  faces  and  gleaming  eyes. 
The  younger  women  had  clear  olive  complexions,  black  eyes,  and  the  elon 
gated  Madonna  faces  of  their  race;  the  older  ones  were  grisly  and  witch-like, 
with  shriveled  bodies  and  wrinkled  faces.  All  of  them  bore  bundles  of  fa"1- 

O 

ots  on  their  heads  that  our  tender  women  would  have  sunk  under,  yet  they 
did  not  seem  in  the  least  to  mind  them.  They  chattered  merrily  as  they 
passed  by  me,  and  I  watched  them  until  out  of  sight;  for,  picturesque  objects 
anywhere,  here  they  were  doubly  so.  They  had  all  gaudy  handkerchiefs 
tied  about  their  heads,  and  shawls  worn  sash-wise,  and  knotted  at  the  hip,  the 
bright  bits  of  warm  color  contrasting  kindly  with  the  dead  white  of  the  sand. 


PROVINCETOWN. 


313 


There  were  shapely  figures  among  them,  but  the  men's  boots  they  of  necessi 
ty  wore  subtracted  a  little  from  the  symmetry  of  outline  and  my  admiration. 

They  number  about  fifty  families — these  Portuguese — and  are  increasing. 
One  citizen  expressed  a  vague  apprehension  lest  they  should  exclude,  event 
ually,  the  whites,  as  the  whites  had  expelled  the  Indians.  And  why  not? 
They  believe  in  large  families,  while  we  believe  in  small  ones  or  none  at  all. 
The  Pilgrims  were  fewer  than  they  when  they  came  to  Cape  Cod,  though 
they  did  believe  in  large  families.  Besides,  Gaspard  Cortereal,  a  "Portin- 
gale,"  fell  in  with  the  land  hereabouts  before  any  of  our  English.  The  Portu 
guese  are  reported  to  have  stocked  Sable  Island  with  domestic  animals  thir 
ty  years  before  Gilbert's  coming  to  Newfoundland.1  Assuredly,  Cortereal 
had  as  good  a  mortgage  on  the  country  as  Cabot,  who  did  not  land,  but  only 
beheld  it  in  sail 
ing  by.  I  had 
found  the  town 
effervescent.  The 
killing  of  a  Portu 
guese  by  his  cap 
tain,  in  a  quarrel 
on  board  a  fish 
ing  vessel,  had  set 
the  whole  town 
talking.  Coming 
from  the  city, 
where  we  aver 
age  a  murder  a 
week,  I  was  quite 
startled  at  the 
measure  of  hor 
ror  and  indigna 
tion  the  deed  ex 
cited  here.  Sub 
sequently  I  learned  that  such  crimes  were  rare,  and  that  in  this  out-of-the-way 
corner  of  the  land  people  had  quite  old-fashioned  notions  about  the  value  of 
human  life  and  limb. 

The  cod  and  mackerel  fisheries  have  been  the  making  of  Provincetown, 
though  they  complained  of  dull  times  when  I  was  there,  the  fleet  not  number 
ing  more  than  fifty  or  sixty  sail.  Some  schooners  go  whaling  to  the  Gulf  of 
Mexico,  Western  Islands,  or  far  up  the  north  coast;  but  the  fares  there  are 
poor,  they  say,  and  growing  poorer.  The  first  mackerel  exhibited  in  the 
spring  in  Boston  market  are  taken  in  Provincetown  Harbor. 


MACKEKEL. — A  FAMILY  GROUP. 


1  Chamj)lain  confirms  this. 


314  THE  NEW  ENGLAND   COAST. 

Former  travelers  have  observed  that  the  art  as  well  as  the  name  of  hay 
making  was  applied  to  the  curing  of  the  cod  here,  the  fish,  when  made,  being 
stacked  in  the  same  manner.  Cattle  are  reported  to  have  sometimes  eaten 
them  in  lieu  of  salt  hay.  When  the  fishing  season  was  at  its  height,  it  must 
have  been  something  to  have  seen — the  length  and  breadth  of  the  town  over 
spread  with  cod-fish,  occupying  the  front  yards  and  intervals  between  the 
houses.  A  goodwife  then,  instead  of  going  to  the  garden  for  vegetables, 
would  bring  in  a  cod-fish  from  the  flakes.  Then  the  hook  was  well  baited. 

I  suppose  the  phrase  "cod-fish  aristocracy"  did  not  originate  on  the  Cape, 
but  may  have  a  more  ancient  beginning  than  is  generally  believed,  as  the 
Dutch  were,  in  the  year  1347,  engaged  in  a  civil  war  which  lasted  many 
years,  the  rival  parties  being  called  "Hooks"  and  "Cod-fish,"  respectively. 
The  former  supported  Margaret,  Countess  of  Holland ;  the  latter,  William, 
her  son. 

Champlain  relates  that  the  Indians,  in  this  bay,  fished  for  cod  with  lines 
made  of  bark,  to  which  a  bone  hook  was  attached,  the  bone  being  fashioned 
like  a  harpoon,  and  fastened  to  a  piece  of  wood  with  what  he  believed  to  be 
hemp,  such  as  they  had  in  France.  Bass,  blue-fish,  and  sturgeon  were  taken 
by  spearing. 

A  fish  dinner  is  eaten  at  least  onee  a  week  by  every  family  in  New  En 
gland.  In  Catholic  countries  the  supply  of  dried  fish  is  usually  exhausted  by 
the  end  of  Lent.  We  have  seen  that  Bradford  received  a  Jesuit  at  his  own 
table,  and  regaled  him  with  a  fish  dinner  because  it  was  Friday,  a  piece  of 
old-time  courtesy  some  would  have  us  think  the  Pilgrims  incapable  of.  Some 
what  later  they  had  a  law  in  Massachusetts  banishing  Jesuits  or  other  Roman 
Catholic  ecclesiastics  out  of  their  jurisdiction  on  pain  of  death. 

In  effect,  the  cod-fish  is  to  New  England  what  roast  beef  is  to  old  Albion. 
The  likeness  of  one  is  hanging  in  the  State-house  at  Boston,  as  the  symbol  of 
a  leading  Massachusetts  industry.  Down  East  the  girls  carry  bits  of  it  in  their 
pockets,  and  it  is  set  on  the  bar-room  counters  for  luncheon.  A  Yankee  can 
fatten  on  it  where  an  Englishman  would  starve.  The  statement  is  fortified 
by  what  we  call  the  truth  of  history. 

In  1714  her  Majesty  of  England  concluded  a  peace  with  her  restless  neigh 
bor  across  the  Channel ;  or,  as  Pope  rhymes  it, 

"At  length  great  Anna  said,  'Let  discord  cease;' 
She  said,  the  world  obey'd,  and  all  Avas  peace." 

This  was  the  famous  treaty  that  Matthew  Prior,  the  negotiator- poet,  calls 
"  the  d — d  Peace  of  Utrecht."  Prior  went  to  Paris  with  Bolino-broke.  Hav- 

O 

ing  arrived  there  during  Lent,  he  was,  by  an  edict,  permitted  to  have  roast 
beef  as  a  mark  of  royal  favor,  and  on,  I  presume,  his  own  application.  I  res 
cue  this  morceau  from  the  abyss  of  state  archives : 

"Nous  Baron  de  Breteuil  et  de  Preuilly, premier  Baron  de  Touraine,  Conr 


PROVINCETOWN. 


315 


du  Roy  en  ses  Conseils,  Introducteur  des  Ambassadeurs  et  Princes  Etrangeres 
pres  de  Sa  Matie;  Enjoignons  au  Boucher  de  1'Hotel  de  Dieu  de  fournir  pen 
dant  le  Careme  an  prix  ordinaire,  suivant  Pordre  du  Roy,  toute  la  viande  de 
Boucherie,  et  Rotisserie  qui  sera  necessaire  pour  la  subsistance  de  la  maison 
de  plenipotentiaire  de  la  Reyne  de  la  Grande  Bretagne,  M.  Prior."1 

If  the  great  staple  of  New  England  is  so  firmly  associated  with  the  Cape, 
its  claims  in  another  direction  deserve  also  to  be  remembered.  The  whale- 
fishery  of  Xew  England  had  its  beginning  here.  The  hook  caught  those 
leviathans  as  the  Penobscot  weirs  catch  salmon.  It  was  long  afterward  that 
Nantucket  bristled  with  harpoons.  That  sea-girt  isle  borrowed  her  art  of 
the  Cape,  and  induced  a  professor  in  wrhale-craft,  Ichabod  Paddock  by  name, 
to  come  over  and  teach  it  to  her.  The  Pilgrims  would  have  begun  on  the 
instant,  but  they  had  not  the  gear.  The  Indians  followed  it  in  their  primi 
tive  way,  and  the  exploring  parties  saw  them  stripping  blubber  from  a  strand 
ed  blackfish  exactly  as  now -practiced. 


POND   VILLAGE,  CAPE   COD. 

During  the  years  the  whales  swam  along  the  shore  by  Cape  Cod  there 
was  good  fishing  in  boats.  Watchmen  stationed  on  the  hills  gave  notice  by 
signals  when  one  was  in  sight.  After  some  time  they  passed  farther  off  on 
the  banks,  and  sloops  carrying  whale-boats  were  used.  Cotton  Mather  refers 
to  the  fishery  here.  Douglass  notes  a  whale  struck  on  the  back  of  Cape  Cod 
that  yielded  one  hundred  and  thirty-four  barrels  of  oil.  In  1739  six  small 
whales  were  taken  in  Provincetown  Harbor.  In  1746  not  more  than  three 
or  four  whales  were  taken  on  the  Cape. 

The  first  whaling  adventure   to  the  Falkland  Islands  is  referred  to  the 


1  Prior  was  personally  acceptable  to  Louis  XIV.,  who  gave  him  a  diamond  box  with  his  por 
trait.     He  was  also  well  known  to  Boileau. 


31(3  THE  NEW  ENGLAND  COAST. 

enterprise  of  two  inhabitants  of  Truro,  who  received  the  hint  from  Admiral 
Montague,  of  the  British  navy,  in  1774.1 

This  admiral,  commonly  called  "Mad  Montague,"  was  a  character.  There 
is  an  anecdote  of  his  causing  his  coxswain  to  put  the  hands  of  some  drowned 
Dutch  sailors  in  their  pockets,  and  then  betting  fifty  guineas  to  five  they  died 
thus.  The  only  reminiscence  of  whaling  that  I  saw  in  Provincetown  was  a 
•rate-way  formed  of  the  ribs  of  a  whale  before  the  door  of  a  cottage.  Over 
the  house-door  was  a  gilded  eagle,  of  wood,  that  had  decorated  some  luckless 
craft.  At  the  tavern  the  door  was  kept  ajar  by  a  curiously  carved  whale's 
tooth  wedged  underneath.  My  landlord,  gray-haired,  but  still  straight  and 
sinewy,  remarked,  as  he  saw  me  examining  it,  "  I  struck  that  fellow." 

But  what  I  came  to  see  here  was  the  desert,  and  I  had  not  yet  seen  it. 
Turning  my  back  upon  the  town,  I  set  out  for  Race  Point,  three  miles  dis 
tant:  The  last  house  I  passed  —  and  this  was  a  slaughter-house  —  had  the 
sign -board  of  a  ship,  the  Plymouth  Rock,  nailed  above  the  lintel.  For  a 
certain  distance  the  path  was  easy  to  follow  ;  it  then  became  obscure,  and  I 
finally  lost  it  altogether;  but  the  sea  on  the  Atlantic  side  was  always  roaring 
a  hoarse  halloo. 

It  was  never  before  my  fortune  to  thread  so  curious  and  at  the  same  time 
so  desolate  a  way  as  this.  It  filled  up  the  pictures  of  my  reading  of  the 
coasts  of  Barbary  or  of  Lower  Egypt.  I  first  crossed  a  range  of  sand-hills 
thinly  grown  with  beach-plum,  whortleberry,  brake,  and  sheep  laurel,  or  wild 
rhododendron.2  Now  and  then  there  was  a  grove  of  stunted  pitch-pines  on 
the  hill-sides,  and  upon  descending  I  found  the  hollows  occupied  by  swamps 
more  or  less  extensive,  where  the  growth  was  denser  and  the  stagnant  water 
dotted  with  white  blossoming  lilies.  There  were  also  clumps  of  the  fra 
grant  white  laurel  in  full  bloom.  In  such  places  the  bushes  grew  thickly, 
and  I  had  to  force  my  way  through  them. 

The  largest  of  these  sunken  ponds  is  named  Shank  Painter.  Seeing  what 
a  share  they  have  in  preserving  Provincetown,  I  shall  always  respect  a  bog  or 
a  morass.  Over  on  the  shore,  between  Race  Point  and  Wood  End,  they  have 
Shank  Painter  Bar.  Here  and  there  in  the  swamp  were  clearings  of  an  acre 
or  two  planted  with  cranberry-vines,  which  yield  a  handsome  return.  It  was 
blossoming-time,  and  the  ground  was  starred  with  their  delicate  white  flow 
ers,  having  the  corolla  rolled  back,  as  seen  in  the  tiger-lily.  I  found  ripe  blue 
berries  growing  close  to  the  sand,  and  wild  strawberries,  of  excellent  flavor, 
on  the  borders  of  cranberry  meadows.  An  account  says,  cows  might  once  be 
seen  "  wading,  and  even  swimming,  in  these  ponds,  plunging  their  heads  into 
the  water  up  to  their  horns,  picking  up  a  scanty  subsistence  from  the  roots 

1  Captain  David  Smith  and  Captain  Gamaliel  Collins. 

3  In  old  times  a  decoction  of  checkerberry  leaves  was  given  to  lambs  poisoned  by  eating  the 
young  leaves  of  the  laurel  in  spring.  , 


PROVINCETOWN. 


317 


and  herbs  produced  in  the  water."  I  saw  birch,  maple,  and  a  few  other  forest 
trees  of  stinted  growth  in  the  swamp,  and  stumps  of  very  large  pines  that 
had  been,  perhaps,  many  times  covered  and  uncovered  by  sand.1 

Cranberry  culture,  already  briefly  alluded  to,  has  become  an  important  in 
dustry  on  Cape  Cod.  It  is  pleasant  to  see  the  pickers  busily  gathering  the 
fruit  for  market,  a  labor  performed  almost  wholly  by  females.  An  instru 
ment  called  a  cranberry-rake  was  formerly  used;  but  as  it  bruised  the  fruit,  it 
has  been  discarded  for  hand-picking.  Very  little  outlay  is  necessary  in  the 
preparation  of  a  cranberry-bed,  and  much  less  labor  than  is  usual  with  ordi- 


IMCKINU    AND   SORTING   CKANBEltKIES  —  CAPE   COD. 

nary  farm  crops,  while  the  return  is  much  greater.  Here  the  visitor  is  aston 
ished  at  seeing  the  vine  producing  abundantly  in  what  appears  to  be  pure 
white  sand.  These  cranberry  plantations  are  very  profitable.  Captain  Henry 
Hull,  of  Barnstable,  was  one  of  the  earliest  cultivators  on  the  Cape. 

Though  it  was  raw  and  windy  the  marsh-flies  bit  shrewdly.  After  pass 
ing  over  the  first  hills  beyond  Shank  Painter,  a  very  different  scene  present 
ed  itself.  Here  was  a  stretch  of  lofty  mounds  of  clean  white  sand,  five  miles 
in  length  and  a  mile  and  a  half  in  breadth,  bare  of  all  vegetation,  except 
scanty  patches  of  beach  grass.  There  was  no  longer  a  path,  and  though  I 


1  There  is  an  authentic  account  of  ice  being  found  here  on  the  4th  of  July,  1741. 


318 


THE  NEW  ENGLAND  COAST. 


saw  occasional  foot-prints,  I  did  not  meet  any  one.     A  carriage  would  be  of 
no  use  where  a  horse  would  sink  to  his  knees  in  the  sand.     It  was  Equality 

Lane,  where  pau 
per  or  millionaire 
must  trudge  for 
it.  In  some  places 
tthe  sand  was  soft 
and  yielding,  and 
again  it  was  so 
hard  beaten  by  the 
wind  that  the  foot 
fall  would  scarcely 
leave  an  impres 
sion.  Scrambling 
to  the  summit  of 
one  of  the  highest 
hills,  I  found  my 
self  overlooking  a 
remarkable  hol- 
low  completely 


SAND-HILLS,  PROVINCETOWN. 


sandy  walls.  A 
Bedouin  might 
have  been  at  home 
here,  but  ship 
wrecked  sailors 
would  wander  aim 
lessly,  until,  caught  in  some  such  cul-de-sac,  they  gave  up  the  ghost  in  de 
spair.  In  wintry  storms  the  route  is  impracticable.  The  tourist  who  has 
never  been  to  Naples  may  here  do  Vesuvius  in  poco,  taking  care  to  empty 
his  shoes  after  sliding  from  the  top  to  the  bottom  of  a  sand-hill. 

The  beach  grass,  I  noticed,  resembled  the  buffalo  grass  of  the  plains.  It 
grew  at  equal  distances,  even  in  spots  where  it  had  seeded  itself.  It  is  the 
sheet-anchor  of  the  Cape ;  for,  now  that  the  woods  are  nearly  gone,  there  is 
nothing  else  to  prevent  this  avalanche  of  sand  from  advancing  and  over 
whelming  every  thing  in  its  way.  Why  may  not  the  cotton-wood,  which  prop 
agates  itself  in  the  sand  on  the  borders  of  Western  rivers,  prove  a  valuable 
auxiliary  here?  I  have  known  a  newly  formed  sand-bar  in  the  Missouri  be 
come  a  well-wooded  island  in  ten  years.  There,  the  tree  grows  to  a  great 
size,  and  seems  to  care  little  for  the  kind  of  soil  it  gets.  The  poplar  (of  the 
same  species)  flourished  well,  I  saw,  in  Provincetown  and  elsewhere  on  the 
Cape.  The  experiment  is  worth  the  trying. 

In  Dr.  Belknap's  account  of  Provincetown,  printed  in  1791,  he  says  of  this 


PROVINCETOWN.  319 

range  of  sand-hills :  "This  volume  of  sand  is  gradually  rolling  into  the  woods 
with  the  winds,  and  as  it  covers  the  trees  to  the  tops,  they  die.  The  tops  of 
the  trees  appear  above  the  sand,  but  they  are  all  dead.  Where  they  have 
been  lately  covered  the  bark  and  twigs  are  still  remaining;  from  others  they 
have  fallen  off;  some  have  been  so  long  whipped  and  worn  out  with  the  sand 
and  winds  that  there  is  nothing  remaining  but  the  hearts  and  knots  of  the 
trees;  but  over  the  greater  part  of  this  desert  ihe  trees  have  long  since  dis 
appeared."  The  tops  of  the  dead  trees  mentioned  by  Dr.  Belknap,  the  rem 
nant  of  the  forest  seen  here  by  the  Pilgrims,  have  been  cut  off  for  fuel,  until 
few,  if  any,  are  to  be  seen. 

After  crossing  the  wilderness,  I  came  to  the  shore.  It  was  blowing  half  a 
gale,  the  sea  being  roughened  by  it,  but  not  grand.  There  was  but  little  drift, 
and  that  such  "  unconsidered  trifles"  of  the  sea  as  the  vertebra  of  fishes,  jelly 
fish,  a  few  tangled  bunches  of  weed,  and  some  pretty  pebbles.  Looking  up 
and  down  the  beach,  I  discovered  one  or  two  wreckers  seeking  out  the  night's 
harvest;  and  presently  there  came  a  cart  in  which  were  a  man  and  woman, 
the  man  ever  and  anon  jumping  out  to  gather  up  a  little  bundle  of  drift-wood, 
with  which  he  ran  back  to  the  cart,  followed  by  a  shaggy  Newfoundland  dog 
that  barked  and  gamboled  at  his  side.  These  wreckers  claim  what  they  have 
discovered  by  placing  crossed  sticks  upon  the  heap,  the  mark  being  respected 
by  all  who  come  after. 

I  followed  the  bank  by  the  verge  of  the  beach,  the  tide  having  but  just 
turned.  Before  me  was  the  light-house,  and  the  collection  of  huts  at  Race 
Point.  A  single  vessel,  bound  for  a  Southern  port,  was  in  sight,  that,  after 
standing  along,  gunwale  under,  within  half  a  mile  of  the  shore,  filled  away  on 
the  other  tack,  rounding  the  point  in  good  style.  A  hundred  yards  back  of 
the  usual  high-water  mark  were  well-defined  lines  of  drift,  indicating  the  limit 
where  the  sea  in  great  storms  had  forced  its  way.  I  passed  a  group  of1  huts, 
used  perhaps  at  times  by  fishermen,  and  at  others  as  a  shelter  for  shipwrecked 
mariners.  The  doors  were  open,  and,  notwithstanding  a  palisade  of  barrel- 
staves,  the  sand  had  drifted  to  a  considerable  depth  within.  Here  also  were 
pieces  of  a  vessel's  bulwarks,  the  first  vestiges  of  wreck  I  had  seen. 

In  1802  the  Humane  Society  erected  a  hut  of  refuge  at  the  head  of  Stout's 
Creek;  but  it  being  improperly  built  with  a  chimney,  and  placed  on  a  spot 
where  no  beach  grass  grew,  the  strong  winds  blew  the  sand  from  its  founda 
tion,  and  the  weight  of  the  chimney  brought  it  to  the  ground.  A  few  weeks 
later  the  ship  Brutus  was  cast  away.  Had  the  hut  remained,  it  is  probable 
the  whole  of  the  unfortunate  crew  might  have  been  saved,  as  they  gained  the 
shore  within  a  few  rods  of  the  spot  where  it  had  stood.  Upon  such  trifles 
the  lives  of  men  sometimes  depend. 

The  curvature  of  the  shore  south  of  Race  Point,  by  which  I  was  walking, 
is  called  Herring  Cove.  There  is  good  anchorage  here,  and  vessels  may  ride 
safely  when  the  wind  is  from  north-east  to  south-east.  The  shore  between 


320 


THE  NEW  ENGLAND  COAST. 


Race  Point  and  Stout's  Creek,  in  Truro,  was  formerly  considered  the  most 
dangerous  on  the  Cape.  Since  the  erection  of  Race  Point  Light,  disasters 
have  been  less  frequent.  An  attempt  to  penetrate  through  the  hills  to  Prov- 
incetown  by  night  would  be  attended  with  danger,  especially  in  the  winter 
season,  but  by  day  the  steeple  of  the  Methodist  church  is  always  in  sight 
from  the  highest  sand-hills. 

Freeman,  in  his  "  History  of  Cape  Cod,"  relates  an  occurrence  that  hap 
pened  here  in  1722.  A  sloop  from  Duxbury,  in  which  the  Rev.  John  Robin 
son  and  wife,  and  daughter  Mary,  had  taken  passage,  was  upset  by  a  sudden 
tempest  near  Nantasket  Beach,  at  the  entrance  of  Boston  Harbor.  The  body 
of  Mrs.  Robinson  was  found  "  in  Herring  Cove,  a  little  within  Race  Point," 
by  Indians,  about  six  weeks  after  the  event.  It  was  identified  by  papers 
found  in  the  stays,  and  by  a  gold  necklace,  that  had  been  concealed  from  the 
natives  by  the  swelling  of  the  neck.  A  finger  had  been  cut  off,  doubtless  for 
the  gold  ring  the  unfortunate  lady  had  worn. 

The  winter  of  1874-'75  will  be  memorable  in  New  England  beyond  the 
present  generation,  the  extreme  cold  having  fast  locked  up  a  greater  number 
of  her  harbors  than  was  ever  before  known.  Provincetown,  that  is  so  provi 
dentially  situated  to  receive  the  storm-tossed  mariner,  \vas  hermetically  seal 
ed  by  a  vast  ice-field,  which  extended  from  Wood  End  to  Manomet,  a  dis 
tance  of  twenty-two  miles,  grasping  in  its  icy  embrace  all  intermediate  shores 
and  havens.  In  the  neighborhood  of  Provincetown  a  fleet  of  fishing  vessels 
that  was  unable  to  reach  the  harbor  became  immovably  imbedded  in  the 
floe,  thus  realizing  at  our  very  doors  all  the  perils  of  Arctic  navigation.  A 
few  were  released  by  the  aid  of  a  steam-cutter,  but  by  far  the  greater  number 
remained  helplessly  imprisoned  without  other  change  than  that  caused  by 
the  occasional  drift  of  the  ice-floe  in  strong  gales. 

The  sight  was  indeed  a  novel  one.  Where  before  was  the  expanse  of  blue- 
water,  nothing  could  now  be  seen  except  the  white  slab,  pure  as  marble,  which 
entombed  the  harbors.  All  within  the  grasp  of  the  eye  was  a  Dead  Sea. 
Flags  of  distress  were  displayed  in  every  direction  from  the  masts  of  crip 
pled  vessels  that  no  help  could  reach.  Their  hulls,  rigging,  and  tapering 
spars  were  so  ice-crusted  as  to  resemble  ships  of  glass.  As  many  as  twenty 
signals  of  distress  were  counted  at  one  time  from  the  life-saving  station  at 
Provincetown.  Some  of  these  luckless  craft  were  crushed  and  sunk  to  the 
bottom ;  others  were  abandoned  by  their  crews,  who  had  eaten  their  last 
crust  and  burned  the  bulwarks  of  their  vessels  for  fuel.  The  remainder  were 
at  length  released  by  the  breaking-up  of  the  ice-floe,  which  only  relaxed  its 
grip  after  having  held  them  fast  for  a  month. 

It  would  not  be  extravagant  to  say  that  the  beach  on  the  ocean  side,  be 
tween  Highland  Light  and  Wood  End,  was  strewed  with  wrecks.  Vessel  after 
vessel  was  dashed  into  pieces  by  waves  that  bore  great  blocks  of  drift-ice  to 
aid  in  the  work  of  destruction.  One  starless  morning:  the  James  Romrndl 


PROVINCETOWX. 


321 


struck  between  Highland  Light  and 
Race  Point.     Instantly  the  ice-laden 
surges  leaped  upon  her  decks.     Wood 
and  iron  were  crushed  like  paper  un 
der  the  blows  of  sea  and  ice.    The  help 
less  vessel  was  forced  sidewise  toward 
the  beach, where  the  waves  began  heap 
ing  up  the  loose  sand  on  the  leeward 
side,  until  it  reached  as  high  as  her 
decks.     When   the  vessel  struck,  the 
crew  clambered   up   the   rigging,  and 
all  were  saved,  in  a  perishing  condi 
tion,  with  the  help  of  rescuing  hands 
from  the  life  station.    One  poor  fellow 
dropped   dead   on   the    shore    he   had 
periled  life  to  gain,  a  frozen   corpse. 
In   twenty -four  hours  there   was  no 
more  left  of  the  James  Eommett  than 
could  be  carried  away  in  the  wreck 
ers'  carts. 

But   saddest  of  all   was   the   loss 
of  the  Italian  bark  Giovanni.     After 
eighty-one  days  of  stormy  voyage  from 
Palermo,  a  terrible  gale,  which  tore  the 
frozen  sails  in  shreds  from  her  masts, 
drove  her  upon  this  dangerous  coast. 
In  the  midst  of  a  blinding  snow-storm, 
the    unmanageable  vessel   was  borne 
steadily  and  mercilessly  upon  the  shore. 
When  she  struck,  the  shock  brought 
down  portions  of  her  rigging,  leaving 
her  a  dismantled   wreck.     Pier   crew 
could  see  people  moving  about  on  the 
beach,  but  no  human  power  could  aiu 
them.     Soon  the  Giovanni  began   to 
sink  into  the  sandy  grave  the  waves 
were  fast  digging  to  receive  her  hull, 
and  the  seas  sweeping  her  decks  raged 
around  the  rigging, in  which  the  sailors 
had  taken  refuge.     One  by  one  they 
were  picked  off  by  the  waves.     The 
wreckers'  bombs  failed  to  bring  a  line 
to  them.    A  few  of  the  ship's  company 


322  THE  NEW  ENGLAND  COAST. 

made  a  desperate  push  for  the  beach,  which  only  one  reached  alive.  All 
night  long  the  wreckers  kept  their  watch  by  the  shore,  hoping  the  gale 
might  abate ;  but  sea  and  wind  beat  and  howled  as  wildly  as  before.  When 
it  was  light  enough  to  descry  the  Giovanni,  six  objects  could  be  seen  cling 
ing  in  the  rigging.  The  ship,  it  was  perceived,  was  fast  breaking  up.  God 
help  thenij  for  no  other  could  !  The  spectators  saw  these  poor  fellows  perish 
before  their  eyes.  They  saw  the  overstrained  masts  bend  and  shiver  and 
break,  crashing  in  ruin  down  upon  the  shattered  hull.  The  next  day  only  a 
piece  of  the  bow  remained,  sticking  up  like  a  grave-stone  on  the  reef. 
'  Of  the  Giovanni's  crew  of  fifteen  only  the  one  mentioned  escaped.  He 
could  not  speak  a  syllable  of  English,  but  was  able,  by  signs,  to  identify  the 
body  of  his  captain,  when  it  came  ashore.  The  other  bodies  that  came  in 
were  laid  out  in  Provincetown  church,  three  miles  from  the  scene  of  the 
wreck.  Stray  portions  of  the  ship's  cargo  of  wine  and  fruit  were  washed 
up,  and  while  any  of  the  former  was  to  be  had  the  beach  was  not  safe  to  be 
traversed.  In  the  midst  of  this  carnival  of  death,  men  drunk  with  wine  wan 
dered  up  and  down  in  the  bitter  cold,  intent  upon  robbery  and  violence.  One 
or  more  of  these  beach  pirates  were  found  dead,  the  victims  of  their  own  de 
bauch. 

The  configuration  of  the  shores  of  the  Cape  on  the  Atlantic  side  is  very 
different  from  what  was  observed  by  early  voyagers.  The  Isle  Nauset  of 
Smith  has,  for  more  than  a  century,  been  "  wiped  out  "  by  the  sea.1  Inlets  to 
harbors  have  in  some  cases  \>een  closed  and  other  passages  opened,  as  at  East- 
ham  and  Orleans.  In  1863  remains  of  the  hull  of  an  ancient  ship  were  uncov 
ered  at  Nauset  Beach  in  Orleans,  imbedded  in  the  mud  of  a  meadow  a  quarter 
of  a  mile  from  any  water  that  would  have  floated  her.  Curiosity  was  aroused 
by  the  situation  as  well  as  the  singular  build  of  the  vessel,  and  what  was  left 
of  her  was  released  from  the  bed  in  which,  it  is  believed,  it  had  been  inclosed 
for  more  than  two  centuries.  A  careful  writer  considers  it  to  have  been  the 
wreck  of  the  Sparrow-hawk,  mentioned  by  Bradford  as  having  been  stranded 
here  in  1626.a 

There  are  generally  two  ranges  of  sand-bars  on  the  ocean  side  of  the  Cape  ; 
the  outward  being  about  three-fourths  of  a  mile  from  shore,  and  the  inner 
range  five  hundred  yards.  As  in  the  case  of  the  ill-fated  Giovanni,  a  vessel 
usually  brings  up  on  the  outer  bar,  and  pounds  over  it  at  the  next  tide,  mere 
ly  to  encounter  the  inward  shoal.  Between  these  two  ranges  a  tremendous 
cross-sea  is  always  running  in  severe  gales,  and,  if  the  wind  has  continued 

1  When  the  English  first  settled  upon  the  Cape  there  was  an  island  off  Chatham,  three  leagues 
distant,  called  Webb's  Island.  It  contained  twenty  acres,  covered  with  red-cedar  or  savin.  The 
Nantucket  people  resorted  to  it  for  fire-wood.  In  1792,  as  Dr.  Morse  relates,  it  had  ceased  to 
exist  for  nearly  a  century/  "A  large  rock,"  he  says,  "that  was  upon  the  island,  and  which  settled 
as  the  earth  washed  away,  now  marks  the  place." 

9  Amos  Otis,  in  the  "New  England  Historical  and  Genealogical  Register, "1865. 


PROVINCETOWN. 


323 


long  from  the  same  quarter,  causing  also  a  current  that  will  float  the  debris 
of  a  wreck  along  the  shore  faster  than  a  man  can  walk.  With  the  wind  at 
south-east  the  wreck  stuff  will  not  land,  but  is  carried  rapidly  to  the  north 
west.  Shipwrecked  mariners  have  to  cross  this  hell  gate  to  reach  the  beach. 
The  mortars  used  at  the  life-stations  will  not  carry  a  life-line  to  a  vessel. at  five 
hundred  yards  from  the  shore  in  the  teeth  of  a  gale,  and  are  therefore  useless 
at  that  distance;  but  if  the  wreck  is  fortunate  enough  to  be  lifted  over  the 
inner  bar  by  the  sea,  it  will  strike  the  beach  at  a  distance  where  it  is  practica 
ble  to  save  life  under  ordinary  contingencies.  So  great  are  the  obstacles  to 
be  overcome  on  this  shore,  .that  there  is  no  part  of  the  New  England  coast, 
Nantucket  perhaps  excepted,  where  a  sailor  would  not  rather  suffer  shipwreck. 
Standing  here,  I  felt  as  if  I  had  not  lived  in  vain.  I  was  as  near  Europe 
as  my  legs  would  carry  me,  at  the  extreme  of  this  withered  arm  with  a  town 
in  the  hollow  of  its  hand.  You  seem  to  have  invaded  the  domain  of  old  Nep 
tune,  and  plucked  him  by  the  very  beard.  For  centuries  the  storms  have 
beaten  upon  this  narrow  strip  of  sand,  behind  which  the  commerce  of  a  State 
lies  intrenched.  The  assault  is  unflagging,  the  defense  obstinate.  Fresh  col 
umns  are  always  forming  outside  for  the  attack,  and  the  roll  of  ocean  is  for 
ever  beating  the  charge.  Yet  the  Cape  stands  fast,  and  will  not  budge.  It  is 
as  if  it  should  say,  "After  me  the  Deluge." 


A    "SUXFISH." 


NANTUCKET,  FROM  THE   SEA. 


CHAPTER  XX. 

NANTUCKET. 

' '  God  bless  the  sea-beat  island ! 

Arid  grant  for  evermore 
That  charity  and  freedom  dwell, 

As  now,  upon  her  shore." — WHITTIEE. 

THE  sea-port  of  ISTantucket,  every  body  knows,  rose,  flourished,  and  fell 
with  the  whale-fishery.  It  lies  snugly  ensconced  in  the  bottom  of  a  bay 
on  the  north  side  of  the  island  of  the  name,  with  a  broad  sound  of  water  be 
tween  it  and  the  nearest  main-lpnd  of  Cape  Cod.  The  first  Englishman  to 
leave  a  distinct  record  of  it  was  Captain  Dernier,  who  was  here  in  1620, 
though  Weymouth  probably  became  entangled  among  Nantucket  Shoals  in 
May,  1605.  The  relations  of  Archer  and  Brereton  render  it  at  least  doubtful 
whether  this  island  was  not  the  first  on  which  Gosnold  landed,  and  to  which 
he  gave  the  name  of  Martha's  Vineyard.  The  two  accounts  are  too  much  at 
variance  to  enable  the  student  to  bring  them  into  reciprocal  agreement,  yet 
that  of  Archer,  being  in  the  form  of  a  diary,  in  which  each  day's  transactions 
are  noted,  will  be  preferred  to  the  narrative  of  Brereton,  who  wrote  from  rec 
ollection.  To  these  the  curious  reader  is  referred.1 

The  name  of  "  Nautican  "  is  the  first  I  have  found  applied  to  Nantucket 

1  Purchas,  iv. ;  reprinted  in  "Massachusetts  Historical  Collections,"  iii.,  viii.  I  can  not  give 
space  to  those  points  that  confirm  my  view,  but  they  make  a  strong  presumptive  case.  It  has 
been  alleged  that  De  Poutrin court  landed  here  after  his  conflict  with  the  Indians  of  Cape  Cod.  So 
far  from  landing  on  the  island  they  saw,  Champlain  says  they  named  it  "La  Soupfonnewe,"  from 
the  doubts  they  had  of  it.  -Lescarbot  adds  that  "they  saw  an  island,  six  or  seven  leagues  in  length, 
which  they  were  not  able  to  reach,  and  so  called  '//e  Douteuse.'  "  The  land,  it  is  probable,  was 
the  Vineyard. 


NANTUCKET. 


325 


Island.1  Whether  the  derivation  is  from  the  Latin  nauticus,  or  a  corruption 
of  the  Indian,  is  disputed,  though  the  word  has  an  unmistakably  Indian  sound 
and  construction.2  In  the  patents  and  other  documents  it  is  called  Nantukes, 
Mantukes,  or  Nantucquet  Isle,  indifferently,  showing,  as  may  be  suggested,  as 
many  efforts  to  construe  good  Indian  into  bad  English.  Previous  to  Gos- 
nold's  voyage  the  English  had  no  knowledge  of  it,  nor  were  the  names  he 


A        T 


MAP  OF   CAPE   COD,  NANTUCKET,  AND  MARTHA'S  VINEYARD. 

gave  the  isles  discovered  by  him  in  general  use  until  long  afterward.  One 
other  derivation  is  too  far-fetched  for  serious  consideration,  a  mere  jeu  de  mot, 
to  which  all  readers  of  Gosnold's  voyage  are  insensible.  Historians  and  an 
tiquaries  having  alike  failed  to  solve  these  knotty  questions,  it  is  proposed 


1  By  Sir  F.  Gorges. 

3  Nantasket,  Naraasket,  Naushon,  Sawtuckett,  are  Indian. 


326  THE  NEW  ENGLAND  COAST. 

to  refer  them  to  a  council  of  Spiritualists,  with  power  to  send  for  persons  and 
papers. 

Those  who  wish  to  enjoy  a  foretaste  of  crossing  the  British  Channel  may 
have  it  by  going  to  Nantucket.  The  passage  affords  in  a  marked  degree  the 
peculiarities  of  a  sea- voyage,  and,  in  rough  weather,  is  not  exempt  from  its 
drawbacks.  The  land  is  nearly,  if  not  quite,  lost  to  view.  You  are  on  the  real 
ocean,  and  the  remainder  of  the  voyage  to  Europe  is  merely  a  few  more  revo 
lutions  of  the  paddles.  You  have  enjoyed  the  emotions  incident  to  getting 
under  way,  of  steering  boldly  out  into  the  open  sea,  and  of  tossing  for  a  few 
hours  upon  its  billows :  the  rest  is  but  a  question  of  time  and  endurance. 

Every  one  is  prepossessed  with  Nantucket.  Its  isolation  from  the  world 
surrounds  it  with  a  mysterious  haze,  that  is  the  more  fascinating  because  it 
exacts  a  certain  faith  in  the  invisible.  Inviting  the  imagination  to  depict  it 
for  us,  is  far  more  interesting  than  if  we  could,  by  going  down  to  the  shore, 
see  it  any  day.  In  order  to  get  to  it  we  must  steer  by  the  compass,  and  in 
thick  weather  look  it  up  with  the  plummet.  In  brief,  it  answers  many  of  the 
conditions  of  an  undiscovered  country.  Although  laid  down  on  every  good 
map  of  New  England,  and  certified  by  the  relations  of  many  trustworthy 
writers,  it  is  not  enough ;  we  do  not  know  Nantucket. 

"-      Vv  --      --     -        ' 


APPROACH  TO  MARTHA'S  VINEYARD. 


No  brighter  or  sunnier  day  could  be  wished  for  than  the  one  on  which 
the  Island  Home  steamed  out  from  Wood's  Hole  into  the  Vineyard  Sound  for 
the  sea-girt  isle.  Besides  the  usual  complement  of  health  and  pleasure  seek 
ers  was  a  company  of  strolling  players,  from  Boston,  as  they  announced  them 
selves —  a  very  long  way  indeed,  I  venture  to  affirm.  These  abstracts  and 
brief  chronicles  of  the  time  "  were  soon  "  well  bestowed  "  on  the  cabin  sofas, 
the  rising  sea  making  it  at  least  doubtful  whether  they  would  be  able  to  per 
form  before  a  Nantucket  audience  so  soon  as  that  ni<rht.  From  the  old  salt 


NANTUCKET.  327 

who  rang  the  bell  and  urged  immediate  attendance  at  the  captain's  office, 
to  the  captain  himself,  with  golden  rings  in  his  ears,  and  the  Indian  girl  who 
officiated  as  stewardess,  the  belongings  of  the  Island  Home  afloat  were  spiced 
with  a  novel  yet  agreeable  foretaste  of  the  island  home  fast  anchored  in  the 
Atlantic. 

The  sail  across  the  Vineyard  Sound  is  more  than  beautiful ;  it  is  a  poem. 
Trending  away  to  the  west,  the  Elizabeth  Islands,  like  a  gate  ajar,  half  close 
the  entrance  into  Buzzard's  Bay.  Among  them  nestles  Cutty  hunk,  where  the 
very  first  English  spade  was  driven  into  Xew  England  soil.1  Straight  over 
in  front  of  the  pathway  the  steamer  is  cleaving  the  Vineyard  is  looking  its 
best  and  greenest,  with  oak-skirted  highlands  inclosing  the  sheltered  harbor 
of  Vineyard  Haven,3  famous  on  all  this  coast.  Edgartown  is  seen  at  the  bot 
tom  of  a  deep  indentation,  its  roofs  gleaming  like  scales  on  some  huge  reptile 
that  has  crawled  out  of  the  sea,  and  is  basking  on  the  warm  yellow  sands. 
Chappaquiddick  Island,  with  its  sandy  tentacles,  terminates  in  Cape  Poge,  on 
which  is  a  light-house. 

Between  the  shores,  and  as  far  as  eye  can  discern,  the  fleet  that  passes 
almost  without  intermission  is  hurrying  up  and  down  the  Sound.  One  col 
umn  stretches  away  under  bellying  sails,  like  a  fleet  advancing  in  line  of  bat 
tle,  but  the  van-guard  is  sinking  beneath  the  distant  waves.  Still  they  come 
and  go,  speeding  on  to  the  appointed  mart,  threading  their  way  securely 
among  islands,  capes,  and  shoals.  Much  they  enliven  the  scene.  A  sea  with 
out  a  sail  is  a  more  impressive  solitude  than  a  deserted  city. 

We  ran  between  the  two  sandy  points,  long  and  low,  that  inclose  the  har 
bor  into  smoother  water.  The  captain  went  on  the  guard.  "Heave  your 
bow-line."  "Ay,  ay,  sir."  "Back  her,  sir"  (to  the  pilot).  "Hold  on  your 
spring."  "Stop  her."  "Slack  away  the  bow-line  there."  "Haul  in."  It 
is  handsomely  done,  and  this  is  Xantucket. 

The  wharf,  I  should  infer,  would  be  the  best  place  in  which  to  take  the 
census  of  Xantucket.  No  small  proportion  of  the  inhabitants  were  assem 
bled  at  the  pier's  head,  waiting  the  arrival  of  the  boat.  You  had  first  to 
make  your  way  through  a  skirmishing  line  of  hack-drivers  and  of  boys  eager 
to  carry  your  luggage;  then  came  the  solid  battalion  of  citizen  idlers,  and 
behind  these  was  a  reserve  of  carriages  and  carts.  On  the  pier  you  gain  the 
idea  that  Nantucket  is  populous;  that  what  you  see  is  merely  the  overflow; 
whereas  it  is  the  wharf  that  is  populous,  while  the  town  is  for  the  moment 
well-nigh  deserted.  There  could  be  no  better  expression  of  the  feeling  of  iso 
lation  than  the  agitation  produced  by  so  simple  an  event  as  the  arrival  of  the 
daily  packet.  Doors  are  slammed,  shutters  pulled  to  in  a  hurry,  while  a  tide 
of  curious  humanity  pours  itself  upon  the  landing-place.  The  coming  steam- 

i         J  In  1002  by  the  colony  of  Bartholomew  Gosnold,  already  so  often  mentioned  in  these  pages. 
9  Better  known  as  Holmes's  Hole. 


328 


THE  NEW  ENGLAND  COAST. 


A   BIT    OP   NANTUCKET— THE   HOUSE-TOPS. 


er  is  heralded  by  the  town-crier's  fish-horn,  as  soon  as  descried  from  the 
church-tower  that  is  his  observatory.  In  winter,  when  communication  witli 
the  main-land  is  sometimes  interrupted  for  several  days  together,  the  sense  of 
separation  from  the  world  must  be  intensified.1 

After  running  the  gantlet  of  the  crowd  on  the  wharf,  the  stranger  is  at 
liberty  to  look  about  him. 

The  fire  of  1846  having  destroyed  the  business  portion  of  the  town,  that 
part  is  not  more  interesting  than  the  average  New  England  towns  of  mod 
ern  growth.  Generally  speaking,  the  houses  are  of  wood,  the  idea  of  spa 
ciousness  seeming  prominent  with  the  builders.  Plenty  of  house-room  was 
no  doubt  synonymous  with  plenty  of  sea-room  in  the  minds  of  retired  ship 
masters,  whose  battered  hulks  I  saw  safe  moored  in  snug  and  quiet  harbors. 
The  streets  are  cleanly,  and,  having  trees  and  flower-gardens,  are  often  pretty 
and  cheerful. 

The  roofs  of  many  houses  are  surmounted  by  a  railed  platform,  a  reminder 
of  the  old  whaling  times.  Here  the  dwellers  might  sit  in  the  cool  of  the  even 
ing,  and  take  note  of  the  passing  ships,  or  of  some  deep -laden  whaleman 
with  rusty  sides  and  grimy  spars  wallowing  toward  the  harbor.  Here  the 
merchant  anxiously  scanned  the  horizon  for  tidings  of  some  loitering  bark ; 
and  here  superannuated  skippers  paced  up  and  down,  as  they  had  done  the 
quarter-deck.  I  question  if  the  custom  was  not  first  brought  here  from  the 


1  On  the  raising  of  the  ice-blockade  of  the  past  winter  seventeen  mails  were  due,  the  greatest 
number  since  1857,  when  twenty-five  regular  and  two  semi-monthly  mails  were  landed  at  Quidnet. 


NANTUCKET.  329 

tropics,  for  in  Spanish-talking  America  the  best  room  is  not  unfrequently 
the  roof,  to  which  the  family  resort  on  sweltering  hot  nights.  Sometimes  a 
storm  arises,  when  the  precipitancy  with  which  the  sleepers  gather  up  their 
pallets  and  seek  a  shelter  is  the  more  amusing  if  witnessed  near  day-break. 
Formerly  every  other  house  in  Nantucket  had  one  of  these  lookouts,  or  a 
vane  at  the  gable-end,  to  show  if  the  wind  was  fair  for  vessels  homeward- 
bound. 

While  other  towns  have  increased,  Nantucket  for  a  length  of  time  has 
stood  still.  I  saw  no  evidences  of  squalid  poverty  or  of  actual  want,  though 
there  was  a  striking  absence  of  activity.  The  fire,  of  which  they  still  talk, 
though  it  happened  thirty  years  ago,  can  not  be  traced  by  such  visible  re 
minders  as  a  mass  of  new  buildings  fitted  into  the  burned  space,  or  by  a  cor 
don  of  old  houses  drawn  around  its  charred  edges.  The  disaster  caused  the 
loss  of  many  handsome  buildings,  among  them  Trinity  Church,  a  beautiful 
little  edifice,  having  latticed  windows. 

If  there  was  no  squalor  obtruding  itself  upon  the  stranger,  neither  was 
there  any  display  of  ostentatious  wealth.  There  were  a  few  large  square 
mansions  of  brick  or  wood,  and  even  an  aristocratic  quarter,  once  known  as 
India  Row ;  but,  on  the  whole,  a  remarkable  equality  existed  in  the  houses 
of  Nantucket.  The  old  New  England  Greek  temple  greets  you  familiarly 
here  and  there.  I  read  on  the  sign-boards  the  well-remembered  names  of 
Coffin,  Folger,  Bunker,  Macy,  Starbuck,  etc.,  that  could  belong  nowhere  else 
than  here.  Whenever  I  have  seen  one  of  them  in  some  distant  corner  of 
the  continent,  I  have  felt  like  raising  the  island  slogan  of  other  times,  "There 
she  blows !" 

The  Nantucket  of  colonial  times  was  not  more  like  the  present  than  sail 
ors  in  pigtails  and  high-crowned  hats  are  like  the  close-cropped,  wide-trow- 
sered  tars  of  to-day.  Houses  were  scattered  about  without  the  semblance  of 
order.  The  streets  had  never  any  names  until  the  assessment  of  the  direct 
tax  in  the  administration  of  President  Adams.  Common  convenience  divided 
the  town  into  neighborhoods,  familiarly  known  as  "  Up-in-Town,"  "West 
Cove,"  or  "North  Shore."  An  old  traveler  says  the  stranger  formerly  re 
ceived  direction  to  Elisha  Bunker's  Street,  or  David  Mitchell's  Street,  or  Tris 
tram  Hussey's  Street. 

The  average  conversation  is  still  interlarded  with  such  sea  phrases  as 
"cruising  about,"  "short  allowance,"  "rigged  out,"  etc.  I  heard  one  woman 
ask  for  the  "bight"  of  a  clothes-line.  I  had  it  from  credible  authority  that  a 
Cape  Cod  girl,  when  kissed,  always  presented  the  other  cheek,  saying, "  You 
darsent  do  that  again."  A  Nantucket  lass  would  say, "  Sheer  off,  or  I'll  split 
your  mainsail  with  a  typhoon." 

There  is  a  story  of  a  "cute"  Nantucket  skipper,  who  boasted  he  could  tell 
where  his  schooner  might  be  in  the  thickest  weather,  simply  by  tasting  what 
the  sounding-lead  brought  up.  His  mates  resolved  to  put  him  to  the  test. 


330  THE  NEW  ENGLAND  COAST. 

The  lead  was  well  greased,  and  thrust  into  a  box  of  earth,  "  a  parsnip  bed," 
that  had  been  brought  on  board  before  sailing.  It  was  then  taken  down  to 
the  skipper,  and  he  was  requested  to  tell  the  schooner's  position.  At  the  first 
taste 

"The  skipper  stormed,  and  tore  his  hair, 

Thrust  on  his  boots,  and  roared  to  Harden, 
'Nantucket's  sunk,  and  here  we  are 
Right  over  old  Marm  Hackett's  garden ! '  " 

The  streets  avoid  the  fatal  straight-line,  though  they  are  not  remarkably 
crooked.  In  the  business  quarter  they  are  paved  with  cobble-stones,  showing 
ruts  deeply  worn  by  the  commerce  of  other  days.  Grass  was  growing  out  of 
the  interstices  of  the  pavement,  where  once  merchants  most  did  congregate. 
One  of  the  principal  avenues  is  built  along  the  brow  of  the  sea-bluff,  so  that 
almost  every  house  commands  a  broad  sweep  of  ocean  view.  The  sides  of  a 
great  many  houses  were  shingled,  being  warmer,  as  many  will  tell  you,  than 
if  covered  with  clapboards.  As  in  all  maritime  towns,  the  weather-vane  is 
usually  a  fish,  and  that,  of  course,  a  whale.  It  is  the  first  thing  looked  at  in 
the  morning  by  every  male  inhabitant  of  the  island.  Some  of  the  lanes  go 
reeling  and  twisting  about  in  a  remarkable  manner. 

Nantucket  was  larger  than  I  had  expected.  The  best  view  of  it  is  ob 
tained  from  the  side  of  Coatue.  A  single  old  windmill  on  the  summit  of  a 
hill  behind  the  town  adds  to  its  picturesqueness,  and  somewhat  relieves  the 
too-familiar  outlines  of  roof  and  steeple.  But  what,  in  a  place  of  its  size,  is 
most  remarkable,  is  the  almost  total  absence  of  movement.  It  impressed  me, 
the  time  I  was  there,  as  uninhabited.  There  were  no  troops  of  joyous  chil 
dren  by  day,  nor  throngs  of  promenaders  by  night;  all  was  listless  and  still. 
Here,  indeed,  was  the  town,  but  where  were  the  people?  I  was  not  at  all 
surprised  when  accosted  by  one  who,  like  me,  wandered  and  wondered,  with 
the  question,  "Does  any  body  live  in  Nantucket?"  In  midwinter,  said  an 
old  resident  to  me,  you  might  have  a  hospital  in  the  town  market-place  with 
out  danger  of  disturbing  any  body.  The  noise  of  wheels  rattling  over  the 
stony  street  is  not  often  heard. 

Owing  to  the  total  loss  of  its  great  industry,  the  population  of  Nantucket 
is  not  greater  than  it  was  a  hundred  years  ago,  and  not  half  what  it  was  ear 
ly  in  the  century.1  A  large  proportion  of  the  houses,  it  would  appear,  were 
unoccupied ;  yet  many  that  had  long  remained  vacant  were  being  thrown 
open  to  admit  new  guests,  that  are  seeking 

"The  breath  of  a  new  life — the  healing  of  the  seas!" 

Old  brasses  were  being  furbished  up,  and  cobwebs  swept  away  by  new 
and  ruthless  brooms.  The  town  is  being  colonized  from  the  main-land,  and 

1  In  1837  its  population  was  9048 ;  it  is  now  a  little  more  than  4000, 


NANTUCKET.  331 

though  the  inhabitants  welcome  the  change,  the  crust  and  flavor  of  original 
ity  can  not  survive  it.  Already  the  drift  has  set  in :  we  may,  perhaps,  live 
to  see  a  full-fledged  lackey  in  Nantncket  streets. 

The  wharves  show  the  same  decay  as  in  Salem  and  Plymouth,  except  that 
here  all  are  about  equally  dilapidated  and  grass-grown.  Not  a  whaling  ves 
sel  of  any  tonnage  to  be  seen  in  Nantucket !  The  assertion  seems  incredible. 
In  1834  there  were  seventy-three  ships  and  a  fleet  of  smaller  craft  owned  on 
the  island.  At  this  moment  a  brace  of  fishing  schooners,  called  smacks,  were 
the  largest  craft  in  the  harbor.  The  dispersion  of  the  shipping  has  been  like 
to  that  of  the  inhabitants.  I  have  seen  those  old  whale-ships,  with  their  bluff 
bows  and  flush  decks,  moored  in  a  long  line  inside  the  Golden  Gate.  There 
they  lay,  rotting  at  their  anchors,  with  topmasts  struck,  and  great  holes  cut 
in  their  sides,  big  enough  to  drive  a  wagon  right  into  their  holds.  To  a  lands 
man  they  looked  not  unlike  a  fleet  in  array  of  battle. 

Others  of  these  old  hulks  drifted  into  such  ports  as  Acapulco  and  Panama, 
where  they  were  used  for  coaling  the  steamships  of  that  coast;  and  at  Sacra 
mento  I  saw  they  had  converted  one  into  a  prison-ship.  The  last  of  them  re 
maining  in  New  England  harbors  were  purchased  by  the  Government,  and 
sunk  in  rebel  harbors,  as  unfit  longer  to  swim  the  seas.  It  is  not  pleasant  to 
think  how  the  last  vestiges  of  a  commerce  that  carried  the  fame  of  the  island 
to  the  remotest  corners  of  the  earth  have  been  swept  from  the  face  of  the 
ocean. 

The  whale-ship  I  was  last  on  board  of  was  the  old  Peri,  of  New  London, 
that  looked  able  to  sail  equally  well  bow  or  stern  foremost.  The  brick  try- 
house,  thick  with  soot,  remained  on  deck,  the  water-butt  was  still  lashed  to 
the  mizzen-mast.  How  she  smelled  of  oil!  Her  timbers  were  soaked  with 
it,  and,  on  looking  down  the  hatchway,  I  could  see  it  floating,  in  prismatic 
colors,  on  the  surface  of  the  bilge-water  in  her  hold.  Many  a  whale  had 
been  cut  up  alongside.  Her  decks  were  greasy  as  a  butcher's  block. 
Though  her  spars  were  aloft,  she  had  a  slipshod  look  that  would  have  vexed 
a  sailor  beyond  measure.  The  very  manner  in  which  the  yards  were  crossed 
told  as  plainly  of  abandonment  as  unreeved  blocks  and  slackened  rigging  be 
tokened  a  careless  indifference  of  her  future. 

In  the  days  of  whaling,  a  different  scene  presented  itself  from  that  now 
seen  on  Nantucket  wharves.  Ships  were  then  constantly  going  and  coming, 
discharging  their  cargoes,  or  getting  ready  for  sea.  The  quays  were  encum 
bered  with  butts  of  oil  and  heaps  of  bone.  The  smith  was  busy  at  his  forge, 
the  cooper  beside  himself  with  work.  Let  us  step  into  the  warehouse.  Oil 
is  everywhere.  The  counting-house  ceiling  is  smeared  with  it.  The  walls  are 
hung  with  pictures  of  famous  whalemen — in  oil,  of  course — coming  into  port 
with  flags  aloft,  and  I  know  not  how  many  barrels  under  their  hatches.  See 
the  private  signal  at  the  mizzen,  the  foam  falling  from  the  bows,  and  bub 
bling  astern!  A  brave  sight;  but  become  unfrequent  of  late. 


332 


THE  NEW  ENGLAND  COAST. 


=r=£  LAST    OP   THE   WHALE-SHIPS. 

.  __  On  the  walls  are  also  models  of 

fortunate  ships,  neatly  lettered  with 

their  names  and  voyages.  I  have  seen  the  head  and  tusks  of  the  walrus  af 
fixed  to  them,  as  the  head  and  antlers  of  the  stag  might  grace  the  halls  of 
the  huntsmen  of  the  land.  A  strip  of  whalebone;  maps  or  charts,  smoke- 
blackened,  and  dotted  with  greasy  finger -marks,  indicating  where  ships 
had  been  spoken,  or  mayhap  gone  to  Davy  Jones's  Locker;  a  South  Sea 
javelin  with  barbed  head,  a  war  club  and  sheaf  of  envenomed  arrows,  or  a 
paddle  curiously  carved,  were  the  usual  paraphernalia  appropriate  in  such  a 
place. 

In  the  store-room  are  all  the  supplies  necessary  to  a  voyage.  There  are 
harpoons,  lances,  and  cutting  spades,  with  a  rifle  or  two  for  the  cabin.  Coils 
of  rigging,  and  lines  for  the  boats,  with  a  thousand  other  objects  belonging  to 
the  ship's  outfitting,  are  not  wanting. 

According  to  Langlet,  the  whale-fishery  was  first  carried  on  by  the  Nor 
wegians,  in  the  ninth  century.  Up  to  the  sixteenth  century,  Newfoundland 
and  Iceland  were  the  fishing-grounds.  The  use  of  bone  was  not  known  until 
1578;  consequently,  says  an  old  writer,  "no  stays  were  worn  by  the  ladies." 
The  English  commenced  whaling  at  Spitsbergen  in  1598,  but  they  had  been 


NANTUCKET. 


333 


preceded  in  those  seas  by  the  Dutch.  As  many  as  two  thousand  whales  a 
year  have  been  annually  killed  on  the  coast  of  Greenland. 

Champlain  says  that  in  his  time  it  was  believed  the  whale  was  usually  taken 
by  balls  fired  from  a  can 
non,  and  that  several  im 
pudent  liars  had  sustained 
this  opinion  to  his  face. 
The  Basques,  he  contin 
ues,  were  the  most  skill 
ful  in  this  fishery.  Leav 
ing  their  vessels  in  some 
good  harbor,  they  man 
ned  their  shallops  with 
good  men,  well  provided 
with  lines  a  hundred  and 
fifty  fathoms  in  length, 
of  the  best  and  strongest 
hemp.  These  were  at-  WHALING  IN  THE  OLDEN  TIME. 

tached  to  the  middle  of  the  harpoons.1  In  each  shallop  was  a  harpooner,  the 
most  adroit  and  "dispos"  among  them,  who  had  the  largest  share  after  the 
master,  inasmuch  as  his  was  the  most  hazardous  office.  The  boats  were  pro 
vided  also  with  a  number  of  partisans  of  the  length  of  a  half-pike,  shod  with 
an  iron  six  inches  broad  and  very  trenchant.2 

When  at  Provincetown,  I  referred  to  the  beginning  of  the  whale-fishery  of 
Xantucket.  Ichabod  Paddock,  in  1690,  instructed  the  islanders  how  to  kill 
whales  from  the  shore  in  boats.  The  Indians  of  the  island  joined  in  the  chase, 
and  were  as  dexterous  as  any.  Early  in  the  eighteenth  century  small  sloops 
and  schooners  of  thirty  or  forty  tons  burden  were  fitted  out,  in  which  the 
blubber,  after  being  first  cut  in  large  square  pieces,  was  brought  home,  for 
trying  out.  In  a  few  years  vessels  of  sixty  to  eighty  tons,  fitted  with  try- 
works,  were  employed. 

Douglass  gives  some  additional  particulars.    About  1746,  he  says,  whaling 

1  The  Dutch  also  whaled  with  long  ropes,  as  is  now  our  method. 

2  "Weymouth  also  describes  the  Indian  manner  of  taking  whales:  "One  especial  thing  is  their 
manner  of  killing  the  whale,  which  they  call  powdawe ;  and  will  describe  his  form  ;  how  he  bloweth 
up  the  water ;  and  that  he  is  twelve  fathoms  long ;  and  that  they  go  in  company  of  their  King,  with 
a  multitude  of  their  boats,  and  strike  him  with  a  bone  made  in  the  fashion  of  a  harping-iron,  fas 
tened  to  a  rope,  which  they  make  great  and  strong  of  the  bark  of  trees,  which  they  veer  out  after 
him  ;  that  all  their  boats  come  about  him,  and  as  he  riseth  above  water,  with  their  arrows  they  shoot 
him  to  death.    When  they  have  killed  him  and  dragged  him  to  shore,  they  call  all  their  chief  lords 
together,  and  sing  a  song  of  joy ;  and  these  chief  lords,  whom  they  call  sagamores,  divide  the  spoil, 
and  give  to  every  man  a  share,  which  pieces  so  distributed  they  hang  up  about  their  houses  for 
provision  ;  and  when  they  boil  them,  they  blow  off'  the  fat,  and  put  to  their  pease,  maize,  and  other 
pulse  which  they  eat. — "  Weymouth's  Voyage." 


334  THE  NEW  ENGLAND  COAST. 

was  by  sloops  or  schooners,  each  carrying  two  boats  and  thirteen  men.  In 
every  boat  were  a  harpooner,  steersman,  and  four  oarsmen,  who  used  nooses 

for  their  oars,  so  that  by  letting  them 
go  they  would  trail  alongside  when 
they  were  fast  to  a  whale.  The  "fast" 
was  a  rope  of  about  twenty-five  fath 
oms,  attached  to  a  drag  made  of  plank, 
about  two  feet  square,  with  a  stick 
through  its  centre.  To  the  end  of  this 
stick  the  tow-rope  of  fifteen  fathoms 
was  fastened.1 

It  passes  without  challenge  that  the 
isle's  men  were  the  most  skillful  whale- 

WHALE  OF   THE  ANCIENTS.  .  i  3          mi         i 

men  in  the  world.  Ihe  boys,  as  soon 

as  they  could  talk,  made  use  of  the  Indian  word  "townor,"  meaning,  "I  have 
twice  seen  the  whale ;"  and  as  soon  as  able  they  took  to  the  oar,  becoming 
expert  oarsmen.  Language  would  inadequately  express  the  triumph  of  the 
youngster  who  landed  in  his  native  town  after  having  struck  his  first  whale. 
The  Indian  who  proudlj7  exhibits  his  first  scalp  could  not  rival  him.  Thus  it 
happens  that  you  suppose  every  man  in  Nantucket  can  handle  the  harpoon, 
and  every  woman  the  oar.  Nor  was  it  in  whaling  battles  alone  that  the 
island  prowess  made  itself  famous.  Reuben  Chase,  midshipman  of  the  Bonne 
Jfomme  Richard  in  the  battle  with  the  Serapis,  became,  under  Mr.  Cooper's 
hand,  Long  Tom  Coffin  of  "  The  Pilot." 

The  Revolution  was  near  giving  the  death-blow  to  Nantucket.  In  Feb 
ruary,  1775,  Lord  North  brought  in  his  famous  bill  to  restrain  the  trade  and 
commerce  of  New  England  with  Great  Britain  and  her  dependencies,  and  to 
prohibit  their  fishery  on  the  Banks  of  Newfoundland.2  It  was  represented 
to  Parliament  that  of  the  population  of  the  islands,  amounting  to  some  thou 
sands,  nine-tenths  were  Quakers;  that  the  land  was  barren,  but  by  astonish 
ing  industry  one  hundred  and  forty  vessels  were  kept  employed,  of  which  all 
but  eight  were  engaged  in  the  whale-fishery.3 

The  inhabitants  having  been  exempted  from  the  restraining  act  of  Parlia 
ment,  the  Continental  Congress,  in  1775,  took  steps  to  prevent  the  export  of 
provisions  to  the  island  from  the  main-land,  except  what  might  be  necessary 
for  domestic  use.  The  Provincial  Congress  of  Massachusetts  also  prohibited 
the  export  of  provisions  until  full  satisfaction  was  given  that  they  were  not 
to  be  used  for  foreign  consumption.4  These  precautions  were  necessary,  be 
cause  the  enemy's  ships  made  the  island  a  rendezvous. 

1  Nantucket  in  1744  had  forty  sloops  and  schooners  in  the  whale-fishery.  The  catch  was  seven 
thousand  to  ten  thousand  barrels  of  oil  per  annum.  There  were  nine  hundred  Indians  on  the  isl 
and  of  great  use  in  the  fishery. — Douglass,  vol.  i.,'p.  405. 

8  State  papers.  3  Gordon,  vol.  i.,  p.  463.  4  Eecords  of  Congress. 


NANTUCKET.  335 

Some  stigma  has  attached  to  the  Nantucket  Friends  for  their  want  of 
patriotism  in  the  Revolution.  They  were  perhaps  in  too  great  haste  to  ap 
ply  for  the  protection  of  the  crown  to  suit  the  temper  of  the  day.  Justice 
to  their  position  requires  the  impartial  historian  to  state  that  they  were  at 
the  mercy  of  the  enemy's  fleets.  They  were  virtually  left  to  shift  for  them 
selves,  and  ought  not  to  be  censured  for  making  the  best  terms  possible. 
At  the  close  of  hostilities  their  commerce  was,  in  fact,  nearly  destroyed. 
Starved  by  their  friends,  now  become  their  enemies,  and  robbed  by  their 
enemies,  of  whom  they  had  sought  to  make  friends,  they  were  in  danger  of 
being  ground  between  the  upper  and  nether  millstones  of  a  hard  destiny. 

I  well  enough  remember  the  first  sight  I  had  of  whale -ships  on  their 
cruising- grounds;  of  the  watchmen  in  their  tubs  at  the  mast-head,  where 
they  looked  like  strange  birds  in  strange  nests ;  and  of  the  great  whales  that 
rose  to  breathe,  casting  fountains  of  spray  high  in  the  air.  They  seemed  not 
more  animated  than  the  black  hull  of  a  vessel  drifting  bottom-up,  and  roll 
ing  lazily  from  side  to  side,  until,  burying  their  huge  heads  deeper,  a  monster 
tail  was  lifted  into  view,  remained  an  instant  motionless,  and  then,  following 
the  rolling  plunge  of  the  unwieldy  body,  sunk  majestically  beneath  the  wave. 

The  curious  interest  with  which,  from  the  deck  of  a  matter-of-fact  steam 
ship,  I  had  watched  the  indolent  gambols  and  puffings  of  the  school,  had 
caused  me  to  lose  sight  of  the  whaleman,  until  an  extraordinary  commotion 
recalled  her  to  my  attention.  Blocks  were  rattling,  commands  quick  and 
sharp  were  ringing  out,  and  I  could  plainly  see  the  splash  that  followed  the 
descent  of  the  boats  into  the  water.  Away  they  went,  the  ashen  blades 
bending  like  withes  with  the  energy  and  vim  of  the  stroke.  Erect  in  the 
stern,  his  arms  bared  to  the  shoulder,  his  body  inclined  forward  like  a  bend 
ed  bow,  was  the  boat-steerer.  I  fancied  I  could  hear  his  voice  and  see  his 
gestures  as  he  shook  his  clenched  fist  in  the  faces  of  the  boat's  crew.  This 
was  the  boat-steerer's  speech  : 

"Now,  boys,  give  it  to  her;  lay  back  hard  !  Spring  hard,  I  tell  you  ! 
There  she  blows  !  Break  your  backs,  you  duff-eaters  !  Put  me  right  on  top 
of  that  whale,  boys  !  There  she  is,  boys  —  a  beauty  !  One  more  lift,  and 
hurra  for  Nantucket  bar  !" 

After  a  weary  and  fruitless  chase— for  the  whales  had  sounded— we  were 
boarded  by  the  mate's  boat,  and  requested  to  report  their  vessel.  I  gazed 
with  real  curiosity  at  its  crew.  Every  man  had  a  bandana  handkerchief 
bound  tightly  about  his  head.  Faces,  chests,  and  arms  were  the  color  of  old 
mahogany  well  oiled.  They  were  then  two  years  out,  they  said,  and  inquired 
anxiously  for  news  from  the  "States."  They  neither  knew  who  was  Presi 
dent,  nor  of  the  war  raging  between  the  great  powers  of  Europe,  and  were 
thankful  for  the  old  newspapers  that  we  tossed  to  them.  At  length  they 
rowed  off,  cutting  their  way  through  the  water  with  a  powerful  stroke,  their 
boat  mounting  the  seas  like  an  egg-shell. 


336  THE  NEW  ENGLAND  COAST. 

An  ancient  salt  with  whom  I  talked  in  Nantucket  spoke  of  the  disappear 
ance  of  the  whales,  and  of  their  turning  up  in  new  and  unexpected  waters. 
From  the  beginning  of  the  century  until  the  decline  of  the  fishery,  vessels 
usually  made  a  straight  course  for  Cape  Horn ;  but  of  late  years,  whales,  he 
said,  had  re-appeared  in  the  Atlantic,  making  their  way,  it  is  believed,  through 
the  North-west  Passage.  Whales  with  harpoons  sticking  in  them  having  the 
names  of  vessels  that  had  entered  the  Arctic  by  way  of  Behring's  Straits 
have  been  taken  by  other  ships  on  the  Atlantic  side  of  the  continent. 

"When  I  first  went  whaling,"  quoth  he,  "  you  might  wake  up  of  a  morn 
ing  in  the  Sea  of  Japan  with  fifty  sail  of  whalemen  in  sight.  A  fish  darsent 
(durst  not)  show  his  head :  some  ship  would  take  him." 

"I  have  gone  on  deck  off  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope,"  he  continued,  "  when 
we  hadn't  a  bar'l  of  ile  in  the  ship,  an'  the  whales  nearly  blowin'  on  us  out  o' 
the  water.  We  took  in  twelve  hundred  bar'ls  afore  we  put  out  the  fires." 

Now,  though  they  burn  coal-oil  in  Nantucket,  I  believe  they  would  pre 
fer  sperm.  You  could  not  convince  an  islander  that  the  discovery  of  oil  in 
the  coal-fields  was  any  thing  to  his  advantage;  nor  would  he  waste  words 
with  you  about  the  law  of  compensations.  A  few,  I  was  told,  still  cling  to 
the  idea  of  a  revival  in  the  whale-fishery,  but  the  greater  number  regard  it  as 
•clean  gone.  I  confess  to  a  weakness  for  oil  of  sperm  myself.  There  are  the 
recollections  of  a  shining  row  of  brazen  and  pewter  lamps  on  the  mantel,  the 
despair  of  house-maids.  In  coal-oil  there  is  no  poetry;  Shakspeare  and  Milton 
did  not  study,  nor  Ben  Jonson  rhyme,  by  it.  Napoleon  dictated  and  Nelson 
died  by  the  light  of  it.  Nowadays  there  are  no  lanterns,  no  torches,  worthy 
the  name. 

As  there  is  not  enough  depth  of  water  on  Nantucket  bar  for  large  ships, 
Edgartown  Harbor  was  formerly  resorted  to  by  the  whalemen  of  this  island, 
to  obtain  fresh  water  and  fit  their  ships  for  sea.  If  they  returned  from  a 
voyage  in  winter,  they  were  obliged  to  discharge  their  cargoes  into  lighters 
at  Edgartown  before  they  could  enter  Nantucket  Harbor.  One  of  the  Nan 
tucket  steeples  was  constructed  with  a  lookout  commanding  the  whole  island, 
from  which  the  watchman  might,  it  is  said,  with  a  glass,  distinguish  vessels 
belonging  here  that  occasionally  came  to  anchor  at  Martha's  Vineyard. 

In  time  a  huge  floating  dock  that  could  be  submerged,  called  a  camel, 
was  employed  to  bring  vessels  over  the  bar.  After  going  on  its  knees  and 
taking  the  ship  on  its  back,  the  camel  was  pumped  free  of  water,  when  both 
came  into  port.  These  machines  are  not  of  Yankee  invention.  They  were 
originated  by  the  celebrated  De  Witt,  for  the  purpose  of  conveying  large  ves 
sels  from  Amsterdam  over  the  Pampus.  They  were  also  introduced  into 
Russia  by  Peter  the  Great,  who  had  obtained  their  model  while  working  as  a 
common  shipwright  in  Holland.  As  invented,  the  camel  was  composed  of 
two  separate  parts,  each  having  a  concave  side  to  embrace  the  ship's  hull,  to 
which  it  was  fastened  with  strong  cables. 


NANTUCKET.  337 

The  harbors  of  Edgartown,  New  London,  and  New  Bedford,  not  being 
subject  to  the  inconvenience  of  a  bar  before  them,  flourished  to  some  extent 
at  the  expense  of  Nantucket ;  but  all  these  ports  have  shared  a  common  fate. 
The  gold  fever  of  1849  broke  out  when  whaling  was  at  its  ebb,  and  then 
scores  of  whale -ships  for  the  last  "time  doubled  Cape  Horn.  Officers  and 
men  drifted  into  other  employments,  or  continued  to  follow  the  sea  in  some 
less  dangerous  service.  They  were  considered  the  best  sailors  in  the  world. 
I  remember  one  athletic  Islesman,  a  second-mate,  who  quelled  a  mutiny  single- 
handed  with  sledge-hammer  blows  of  his  fist.  When  his  captain  appeared 
on  deck  with  a  brace  of  pistols,  the  affray  was  over.  The  ringleader  bore 
the  marks  of  a  terrible  punishment.  "You've  a  heavy  hand,  Mr.  Blank," 

said  Captain  G .  "  I'm  a  Nantucket  whaleman,  and  used  to  a  long 

dart." 

At  the  Xantucket  Athenaeum  are  exhibited  some  relics  of  whales  and 
whaling,  of  which  all  true  islanders  love  so  well  to  talk.  The  jaw-bone  of  a 
sperm-whale  may  there  be  seen.  It  would  have  made  Samson  a  better  weap 
on  than  the  one  he  used  with  such  effect  against  the  Philistines.  This  whale 
stores  the  spermaceti  in  his  cheek.  You  can  compress  the  oil  from  it  with 
the  hand,  as  from  honey-comb.  What  is  called  the  "case"  is  contained  in 
the  reservoir  he  carries  in  his  head,  from  which  barrels  of  it  are  sometimes 
dipped.  What  does  he  want  with  it?  Or  is  it,  mayhap,  a  softening  of  his 
great,  sluggish  brain  ? 

The  tremendous  power  the  whale  is  able  to  put  forth  when  enraged  is 
illustrated  by  the  tale  of  a  collision  with  one  that  resulted  in  the  loss  of  the 
ship  Essex,  of  Nantucket.  On  the  13th  of  November,  ]820,  the  ship  was 
among  whales,  and  three  boats  were  lowered.  A  young  whale  was  taken. 
Shortly  after,  another  of  great  size,  supposed  to  have  been  the  dam  of  the  one 
just  killed,  came  against  the  ship  with  such  violence  as  to  tear  away  part  of 
the  false  keel.  It  then  remained  some  time  alongside,  endeavoring  to  grip 
the  ship  in  its  jaws ;  but,  failing  to  make  any  impression,  swam  off  about  a 
quarter  of  a  mile,  when,  suddenly  turning  about,  it  came  with  tremendous 
velocity  toward  the  Essex.  The  concussion  not  only  stopped  the  vessel's 
way,  but  actually  forced  her  astern.  Every  man  on  deck  was  knocked  down. 
The  bows  were  completely  stove.  In  a  few  minutes  the  vessel  filled  and 
went  on  her  beam-ends. 

Near  one  of  the  principal  wharves  is  the  Custom-house.  It  is  situated  at 
the  bottom  of  the  square  already  referred  to,  of  which  the  Pacific  Bank, 
established  in  1805,  occupies  the  upper  end,  the  sides  being  bordered  by 
shops.  The  first-floor  of  the  Custom-house  is  used  by  a  club  of  retired  ship 
masters,  in  which  they  meet  to  recount  the  perils  and  recall  the  spoils  of 
whaling  battles. 

We  are  told  by  Macy,  the  historian  of  the  island,  that  "  the  inhabitants 
live  together  like  one  great  family.  They  not  only  know  their  nearest  neigh- 

22 


338  THE  NEW  ENGLAND  COAST. 

bors,  but  each  one  knows  the  rest.  If  you  wish  to  see  any  man,  you  need  but 
ask  the  first  inhabitant  you  meet,  and  he  will  be  able  to  conduct  you  to  his 
residence,  to  tell  you  what  occupation  he  is  of,  etc.,  etc."  If  one  house  en 
tertained  a  stranger,  the  neighbors  would  send  in  whatever  luxuries  they 
might  have.  After  a  lapse  of  nearly  forty  years,  I  found  Macy's  account 
still  true.  All  questionings  were  answered  with  civility  and  directness,  and, 
as  if  that  were  not  enough,  persons  volunteered  to  go  out  of  their  way  to 
conduct  me.  In  a  whaling  port  there  is  no  cod-fish  aristocracy.  Thackeray 
could  not  have  found  materials  for  his  "  Book  of  Snobs"  in  Nantucket,  though, 
if  rumor  may  be  believed,  a  few  of  the  genus  are  dropping  in  from  the  main 
land. 

I  observed  nothing  peculiar  about  the  principal  centre  of  trade,  except  the 
manner  of  selling  meat,  vegetables,  etc.  When  the  butchers  accumulate  an 
overstock  of  any  article  they  dispose  of  it  by  auction,  the  town-crier  being 
dispatched  to  summon  the  inhabitants,  greeting. 

This  functionary  I  met,  swelling  with  importance,  but  a  trifle  blown  from 
the  frequent  sounding  of  his  clarion,  to  wit,  a  japanned  fish-horn.  Met  him, 
did  I  say  ?  I  beg  the  indulgence  of  the  reader.  Wherever  I  wandered  in  my 
rambles,  he  was  sure  to  turn  the  corner  just  ahead  of  me,  or  to  spring  from 
the  covert  of  some  blind  alley.  He  was  one  of  those  who,  Macy  says,  knew 
all  the  other  inhabitants  of  the  island ;  me  he  knew  for  a  stranger.  He  stopped 
short.  First  he  wound  a  terrific  blast  of  his  horn.  Toot,  toot,  toot,  it  echoed 
down  the  street,  like  the  discordant  braying  of  a  donkey.  This  he  followed 
with  lusty  ringing  of  a  large  dinner-bell,  peal  on  peal,  until  I  was  ready  to 
exclaim  with  the  Moor, 

"Silence  that  dreadful  bell!  it  frights  the  isle 
From  her  propriety." 

Then,  placing  the  fish-horn  under  his  arm,  and  taking  the  bell  by  the  tongue, 
he  delivered  himself  of  his  formula.  I  am  not  likely  to  forget  it :  "  Two  boats 
a  day  !  Burgess's  meat  auction  this  evening  !  Corned  beef!  Boston  Theatre, 
positively  last  night  this  evening  !" 

He  was  gone,  and  I  heard  bell  and  horn  in  the  next  street.  He  was  the 
life  of  Nantucket  while  I  was  there;  the  only  inhabitant  I  saw  moving  faster 
than  a  moderate  walk.  They  said  he  had  been  a  soldier,  discharged,  by  his 
own  account,  for  being  " non  compos"  or  something  of  the  sort.  I  doubt 
there  is  any  thing  the  matter  with  his  lungs,  or  that  his  wits  are, "  like  sweet 
bells  jangled,  out  of  tune  and  harsh  ;"  yet  of  his  fish-horn  I  would  say, 

"0  would  I  might  turn  poet  for  an  houre, 
To  satirize  with  a  vindictive  powere 
Against  the  blower  /'' 

The  history  of  Nantucket  is  not  involved  in  obscurity,  though  Dr.  Morse, 


NANTUCKET.  339 

in  his  Gazetteer,  printed  in  1793,  says  no  mention  is  made  of  the  discovery  and 
settlement  of  the  island,  under  its  present  name,  by  any  of  our  historians.  Its 
settlement  by  English  goes  no  further  back  than  1659,  when  Thomas  Macy1 
removed  from  Salisbury,  in  Massachusetts,  to  the  west  end  of  the  island,  called 
by  the  Indians  Maddequet,  a  name  still  retained  by  the  harbor  and  fishing 
hamlet  there.  Edward  Starbuck,  James  Coffin,  and  another  of  the  name  of 
Daget,  or  Daggett,  came  over  from  Martha's  Vineyard,  it  is  said,  for  the  sake 
of  the  gunning,  and  lived  with  Macy.  At  that  time  there  were  nearly  three 
thousand  Indians  on  the  island. 

Nantucket  annals  show  what  kind  of  sailors  may  be  made  of  Quakers. 
The  illustration  is  not  unique.  In  the  same  year  that  Macy  came  to  the  isl 
and  a  ship  wholly  manned  by  them  went  from  Newfoundland  to  Lisbon  with 
fish.  Some  of  them  much  affronted  the  Portuguese  whom  they  met  in  the 
streets  by  not  taking  off  their  hats  to  salute  them.  If  the  gravity  of  the 
matter  had  not  been  the  subject  of  a  state  paper  I  should  not  have  known  it.2 

Xantucket  and  Martha's  Vineyard  were  not  included  in  either  of  the  four 
New  England  governments.  All  the  islands  between  Cape  Cod  and  Hudson 
River  were  claimed  by  the  Earl  of  Sterling.  In  1641  a  deed  was  passed  to 
Thomas  Mayhew,  of  Martha's  Vineyard,  by  James  Forett,  agent  of  the  earl, 
and  Richard  Vines,  the  steward  of  Sir  F.  Gorges.  The  island,  until  the  ac 
cession  of  William  and  Mary,  was  considered  within  the  jurisdiction  of  New 
York,  though  we  find  the  deed  to  Mayhew  reciting  that  the  government  to 
be  there  established  by  him  and  his  associates  should  be  such  as  was  then 
existing  in  Massachusetts,  with  the  same  privileges  granted  by  the  patent  of 
that  colony.  In  1659  Mayhew  conveyed  to  the  associates  mentioned  in  his 
deed,  nine  in  number,  equal  portions  of  his  grant,  after  reserving  to  himself 
Masquetuck  Neck,  or  Quaise.3  The  consideration  was  thirty  pounds  of  lawful 
money  and  two  beaver  hats,  one  for  himself,  and  one  for  his  wife.  The  first 
meeting  of  the  proprietors  was  held  at  Salisbury,  Massachusetts,  in  September 

1  Of  Macy  it  is  known  that  he  fled  from  the  rigorous  persecution  of  the  Quakers  by  the  govern 
ment  of  Massachusetts  Bay.  The  penalties  were  ordinarily  cropping  the  ears,  branding  with  an 
iron,  scourging,  the  pillory,  or  banishment.  These  cruelties,  barbarous  as  they  were,  were  merely 
borrowed  from  the  England  of  that  day,  where  the  sect,  saving  capital  punishment,  was  persecuted 
with  as  great  rigor  as  it  ever  was  in  the  colonies.  The  death-penalty  inflicted  in  the  Bay  Colony 
brought  the  affairs  of  the  Friends  to  the  notice  of  the  reigning  king.  Thereafter  they  were  toler 
ated  ;  but  as  persecution  ceased  the  sect  dwindled  away,  and  in  New  England  it  is  not  numerous. 
The  Friends'  poet  sings  of  Macy,  the  outcast : 

"Far  round  the  bleak  and  stormy  Cape 

The  vent'rous  Macy  passed, 
And  on  Nantucket's  naked  i^le 

Drew  up  his  boat  at  last." 
'Thurloe,  vol.  v.,  p.  422. 

3  The  nine  were  Tristram  Coffin,  Thomas  Macy,  Christopher  Hussey,  Richard  Swain,  Thomas 
Barnard,  Peter  Coffin,  Stephen  Greenleaf,  John  Swain,  and  William  Pile,  who  afterward  sold  his 
tenth  to  Richard  Swain. 


340  THE  NEW  ENGLAND  COAST. 

of  the  same  year  (1659),  at  which  time  ten  other  persons  were  admitted  part 
ners,1  enlarging  the  whole  number  of  proprietors  to  nineteen.  After  the  re 
moval  to  the  island,  the  number  was  further  increased  to  twenty-seven  by  the 
admission  of  Richard  and  Joseph  Gardiner,  Joseph  Coleman,  William  Worth, 
Peter  and  Eleazer  Folger,  Samuel  Stretor,  and  Nathaniel  Wier. 

The  English  settlers  in  1660  obtained  a  confirmation  of  their  title  from 
the  sachems  Wanackmaraack  and  Nickanoose,  with  certain  reservations  to 
the  Indian  inhabitants,  driving,  as  usual,  a  hard,  ungenerous  bargain,  as  the 
Indians  learned  when  too  late.  In  1700  their  grievances  were  communicated 
by  the  Earl  of  Bellomont,  then  governor,  to  the  crown.  Their  greatest 
complaint  was,  that  the  English  had  by  calculation  stripped  them  of  the 
means  of  keeping  cattle  or  live  stock  of  any  kind,  even  on  their  reserved 
lands,  by  means  of  concessions  they  did  not  comprehend.  At  that  time  the 
Indians  had  been  decimated,  numbering  fewer  than  four  hundred,  while  the 
whites  had  increased  to  eight  hundred  souls.  The  mortality  of  1763  wasted 
the  few  remaining  Indians  to  a  handful.2  In  1791  there  were  but  four  males 
and  sixteen  females.  Abraham  Quady,  the  last  survivor,  died  within  a  few 
years. 

The  choice  of  the  island  by  Macy  is  accounted  for  by  the  foregoing  facts, 
doubtless  within  his  knowledge,  as  many  of  the  original  proprietors  were  his 
townsmen. 

Thomas  Mayhew  ought  to  be  considered  one  of  the  fathers  of  English  set 
tlement  in  New  England.  He  was  of  Watertown,  in  Massachusetts,  and  I 
presume  the  same  person  mentioned  by  Drake,  in  his  "Founders,"  as  desirous 
of  passing,  in  1637,  into  "fforaigne  partes."  He  is  styled  Mr.  Thomas  May- 
hew,  Gent.,  a  title  raising  him  above  the  rank  of  tradesmen,  artificers,  and  the 
like,  who  were  not  then  considered  gentlemen ;  nor  is  this  distinction  much 
weakened  at  the  present  day  in  England.  Mayhew  received  his  grant  of 
Nantucket  and  two  small  islands  adjoining  in  October,  1641,  and  on  the  23d 
of  the  same  month,  of  Martha's  Vineyard  and  the  Elizabeth  Islands.  The 
younger  Mayhew,  who,  Mather  says,  settled  at  the  Vineyard  in  1642,  seems  to 
have  devoted  himself  to  the  conversion  of  the  Indians  with  the  zeal  of  a  mis 
sionary.3  In  1657  he  was  drowned  at  sea,  the  ship  in  which  he  had  sailed  for 
England  never  having  been  heard  from.  He  was  taking  with  him  one  of  the 
Vineyard  Indians,  with  the  hope  of  awakening  an  interest  in  their  progress 
toward  Christianity.  Jonathan  Mayhew,  the  celebrated  divine,  was  of  this 
stock. 

The  first  settlement  at  Maddequet  Harbor  was  abandoned  after  a  more 

1  John  Smith,  Nathaniel  Starbuck,  Edward  Starbuck,  Thomas  Look,  Eobert  Barnard,  James 
Coffin,  Robert  Pike,  Tristram  Coffin,  Jun.,  Thomas  Coleman,  and  John  Bishop. 

2  Of  three  hundred  and >  fifty-eight  Indians  alive  in  1763,  two  hundred  and  twenty-two  died  by 
the  distemper. 

3  Hutchinson. 


NANTUCKET. 


341 


thorough  knowledge  of  the  island  and  the  accession  of  white  inhabitants.  The 
south  side  of  the  present  harbor  was  first  selected ;  but  its  inconvenience  being 
soon  felt,  the  town  was  located  where  it  now  is.  By  instruction  of  Governor 
Francis  Lovelace  it  received,  in  1673,  the  name  of  Sherburne,  changed  in  1795 
to  the  more  familiar  one  of  Xuntucket. 

The  town  stands  near  the  centre  of  the  island,  the  place  having  formerly 
been  known  by  the  Indian  name  of"  Wesko,"  signifying  White  Stone.  This 
stone,  which  lay,  like  the  rock  of  the  Pilgrims,  on  the  harbor  shore,  was  in 
time  covered  by  a  wharf.  The  bluff  at  the  west  of  the  town  still  retains  the 
name  of  Sherburne.  I  found  the  oldest  houses  at  the  extremities  of  the  town. 


E.  JOHNSON'S  STUDIO,  NANTUCKET. 

Another  of  the  original  proprietors  is  remembered  with  honor  by  the  isl 
anders.  Peter  Folger  was  looked  up  to  as  a  superior  sort  of  man.  He  was 
so  well  versed  in  the  Indian  tongue  that  his  name  is  often  found  on  the  deeds 
from  the  natives.  The  mother  of  Benjamin  Franklin  was  the  daughter  of 
Folger.  They  do  not  forget  it.  The  name  of  Peter  Folger  is  still  contin 
ued,  and  family  relics  of  interest  are  preserved  by  the  descendants  of  the 
first  Peter. 

Any  account  of  Xantucket  must  be  incomplete  that  omits  mention  of  Sir 
Isaac  Coffin.  Sir  Isaac  was  a  Bostonian.  His  family  were  out-and-out  Tories 
in  the  Revolution,  with  more  talent  than  in  general  falls  to  the  share  of  one 


342  THE  NEW  ENGLAND  COAST. 

household.  He  was  descended  from  an  ancient  family  in  the  northern  part 
of  Devonshire,  England.  In  1773  Isaac  Coffin  was  taken  to  sea  by  Lieutenant 
Hunter,  of  the  Gaspee,  at  the  recommendation  of  Admiral  John  Montague. 
His  commanding  officer  said  he  never  knew  any  young  man  acquire  so  much 
nautical  knowledge  in  so  short  a  time.  After  reaching  the  grade  of  post- 
captain,  Coffin,  for  a  breach  of  the  regulations  of  the  service,  was  deprived  of 
his  vessel,  and  Earl  Howe  struck  his  name  from  the  list  of  post-captains.  This 
act  being  illegal,  he  was  reinstated  in  1790.  In  1804  he  was  made  a  baronet, 
and  in  1814  became  a  full  admiral  in  the  British  navy.  One  of  his  brothers 
was  a  British  general. 

On  a  visit  to  the  United  States,  in  1826,  Sir  Isaac  came  to  Nantucket. 
Finding  that  many  of  the  inhabitants  claimed  descent  from  his  own  genea 
logical  tree,  he  authorized  the  purchase  of  a  building,  and  endowed  it  with  a 
fund  of  twenty-five  hundred  pounds  sterling,  for  the  establishment  of  a  school 
to  which  all  descendants  of  Tristram  Coffin,  one  of  the  first  settlers,  should  be 
admitted.  On  one  of  his  voyages  to  America  the  admiral  suffered  shipwreck. 

During  the  war  of  1812,  it  is  related  that  the  admiral  made  a  visit  to  Dart 
moor  prison,  for  the  purpose  of  releasing  any  American  prisoners  of  his  family 
name.  Among  others  who  presented  themselves  was  a  negro.  "Ah,"  said 
the  admiral, "  you  a  Coffin  too  ?"  "  Yes,  massa."  "  How  old  are  yon  ?"  "  Me 
thirty  years,  massa."  "  Well,  then,  you  are  not  one  of  the  Coffins,  for  they 
never  turn  black  until  forty." 


NANTUCKET. — OLD    WINDMILL,  LOOKING   OCEANWAKD. 


CHAPTER  XXL 

NANTUCKET — continued. 

Muskeeget,  Tuckanuck,  Maddequet, 
Sankoty,  Coatue,  Siasconset. 

HISTORY  is  said  to  repeat  itself,  and  why  may  not  the  whale-fishing? 
Now  that  the  ships  are  all  gone,  a  small  whale  is  occasionally  taken  off 
the  island,  as  in  days  of  yore.  While  I  was  at  Nantueket,  a  school  of  black- 
fish  were  good  enough  to  come  into  the  shallows  not  far  from  the  harbor,  and 
stupid  enough  to  permit  themselves  to  be  taken.  The  manner  of  their  cap 
ture  was  truly  an  example  of  the  triumph  of  mind  over  matter. 

When  the  school  were  discovered  near  the  shore,  the  fishermen,  getting 
outside  of  them  in  their  dories,  by  hallooing,  sounding  of  horns,  and  other 
noises,  drove  them,  like  frightened  sheep,  toward  the  beach.  As  soon  as  the 
hunters  were  in  shoal  water  they  left  their  boats,  and  jumped  overboard,  urg 
ing  the  silly  fish  on  by  outcries,  splashing  the  water,  and  blows.  Men,  and 
even  boys,  waded  boldly  up  to  a  fish,  and  led  him  ashore  by  a  fin  ;  or,  if  in 
clined  to  show  fight,  put  their  knives  into  him.  They  cuffed  them,  pricked 
them  onward,  filling  the  air  with  shouts,  or  with  peals  of  laughter,  as  some 
pursuer,  more  eager  than  prudent,  lost  his  footing,  and  became  for  the  moment 
a  fish.  All  this  time  the  blackfish  were  nearing  the  shore,  uttering  sounds 
closely  resembling  groanings  and  lamentations.  The  calves  kept  close  to  the 


344  THE  NEW  ENGLAND  COAST. 

old  ones,  "  squealing,"  as  one  of  the  captors  told  me,  like  young  pigs.  It  was 
great  sport,  not  wholly  free  from  danger,  for  the  fish  can  strike  a  powerful 
blow  with  its  flukes ;  and  the  air  was  filled  with  jets  of  water  where  they  had 
lashed  it  into  foam.  At  length  the  wrhole  school  were  landed,  even  to  one 
poor  calf  that  had  wandered  off,  and  now  came  back  to  seek  its  dam.  The 
fishermen,  after  putting  their  marks  upon  them,  went  up  to  town  to  com 
municate  their  good  luck.  Sometimes  a  hundred  or  two  are  taken  at  once 
in  this  wise,  here  or  on  the  Cape. 

The  oil  of  the  blackfish  is  obtained  in  precisely  the  same  manner  as  that 
of  the  whale,  of  which  it  is  a  pocket  edition.  The  blubber,  nearly  resembling 
pork-fat,  was  stripped  off  and  taken  in  dories  to  town.  I  saw  the  men  tossing 
it  with  their  pitchforks  on  the  shore,  whence  it  was  loaded  into  carts,  and  car 
ried  to  the  try-house  on  one  of  the  wharves.  Here  it  was  heaped  in  a  palpi 
tating  and  by  no  means  savory  mass.  Men  were  busily  engaged  in  trimming 
off  the  superfluous  flesh,  or  in  slicing  it,  with  great  knives  resembling  shingle- 
froes, into  pieces  suitable  for  the  try-pot;  and  still  others  were  tossing  it  into 
the  smoking  caldron. 

But  if  whales  are  getting  scarce  round  about  Nantucket,  the  blue-fish  is 
still  plenty.  This  gamest  and  most  delicious  of  salt-water  fish  is  noted  for 
its  strength,  voracity,  and  grit.  He  is  a  very  pirate  among  fish,  making  prey 
of  all  alike.  Cod,  haddock,  mackerel,  or  tautog,  are  glad  to  get  out  of  his 
way ;  the  smaller  fry  he  chases  among  the  surf-waves  of  the  shore,  much  as 
the  fishermen  pursue  the  blackfish.  Where  the  blue-fish  abounds  you  need 
not  try  for  other  sort:  he  is  lord  high  admiral  of  the  finny  tribes. 

This  fish  has  a  curious  history.  Before  the  year  1763,  in  which  the  great 
pestilence  occurred  among  the  Indians  of  the  island,  and  from  the  first  coming 
of  the  Indians  to  Nantucket,  a  large,  fat  fish,  called  the  blue-fish,  thirty  of 
which  would  fill  a  barrel,  was  caught  in  great  plenty  all  around  the  island, 
from  the  1st  of  July  to  the  middle  of  October.  It  was  remarked  that  in 
1764,  the  year  in  which  the  sickness  ended,  they  disappeared,  and  were  not 
again  seen  until  about  fifty  years  ago.1 

It  was  a  delicious  afternoon  that  I  set  sail  for  the  "Opening,"  as  it  is  called, 
between  Nantucket  and  Tuckanuck,2  an  appanage  of  the  former,  and  one  of 
the  five  islands  constituting  the  county  of  Nantucket.  The  tide  runs  with 
such  swiftness  that  the  boatmen  do  not  venture  through  the  Opening  except 
with  plenty  of  wind,  and  of  the  right  sort.  With  a  stiff"  breeze  blowing,  the 
breakers  are  superb,  especially  when  wind  and  tide  are  battling  with  each 
other.  With  the  wind  blowing  freshly  over  these  shallow  waters,  it  does 
not  take  long  for  the  seas  to  assume  proportions  simply  appalling  to  a  lands- 

1  Zaccheus  Macy,  in  his  account  of  the  island,  written  in  1792,  says  none  had  been  taken  up  to 
that  time — "  a  great  loss  to  the  islanders." 

2  The  Indian  name  Tuckanuck  signifies  a  loaf  of  bread. 


NANTUCKET. 


345 


CAPTURED  POKPOISE  AND  BLACKFISH. 


man.      It  was  a  magnificent  sight ! 

Great  waves  erected  themselves  into 

solid    walls   of  green,  advancing  at 

first  majestically,  then  rushing  with 

increased     momentum     across     our 

course   to  crash  in   clouds  of  foam 

upon  the  opposite  shore.     It  needs  a 

skillful  boatman  at  the  helm.     What  with  the  big  seas,  the  seething  tide-rips, 

and  the  scanty  sea-room,  the  sail  is  of  itself  sufficiently  exciting. 

But  the  fishing,  what  of  that  ?  AVe  cast  our  lines  over  the  stern,  and,  as 
the  boat  was  going  at  a  great  pace,  they  were  straightened  out  in  a  trice. 
At  the  end  of  each  was  a  wicked -looking  hook  of  large  size,  having  a 
leaden  sinker  run  upon  the  shank  of  it.  Over  this  hook,  called  by  the  fish 
ermen  hereabouts  a  "drail,"  an  eel-skin  was  drawn,  though  I  have  known 
the  blue -fish  to  bite  well  at  a  simple  piece  of  canvas  or  leather.  Away 
bounded  the  boat,  while  we  stood  braced  in  the  standing- room  to  meet  her 
plunging.  Twenty  fathoms  with  a  pound  of  lead  at  the  end  seems  fifty, 
at  least,  with  your  boat  rushing  headlong  under  all  she  can  bear.  Half 
an  acre  of  smooth  water  wholly  unruffled  is  just  ahead.  "I'm  going  to 
put  you  right  into  that  slick,"  said  our  helmsman.  "Now  look  out  for  a 
big  one." 

I  felt  a  dead  weight  at  my  line.  At  the  end  of  it  a  shining  object  leaped 
clear  from  the  water  and  fell,  with  a  loud  plash,  a  yard  in  advance.  Now, 
haul  in  steadily;  don't  be  flurried;  but,  above  all,  mind  your  line  does  not 
slacken.  I  lost  one  splendid  fellow  by  too  great  precipitation.  The  line  is 
as  rigid  as  steel  wire,  and,  if  your  hands  are  tender,  cuts  deep  into  the  flesh. 
Ah !  he  is  now  near  enough  to  see  the  boat.  How  he  plunges  and  tries  to 
turn  !  He  makes  the  water  boil,  and  the  line  fairly  sing.  I  had  as  lief  try  to 
hold  an  old  hunter  in  a  steeple-chase.  Ha !  here  you  are,  my  captive,  under 
the  counter;  and  now  I  lift  you  carefully  over  the  gunwale.  I  enjoin  on  the 


346  THE  NEW  ENGLAND  COAST. 

inexperienced  to  be  sure  they  land  a  fish  in  the  boat,  and  not  lose  one,  as  I 
did,  by  throwing  him  on  the  gunwale. 

The  fish  shows  fight  after  he  is  in  the  tub,  shutting  his  jaws  with  a  vicious 
snap  as  he  is  being  unhooked.  Look  out  for  him ;  he  can  bite,  and  sharply 
too.  The  blue-fish  is  not  unlike  the  salmon  in  looks  and  in  action.  He  is  fur 
nished  with  a  backbone  of  steel,  and  is  younger  brother  to  the  shark. 

I  looked  over  my  shoulder.  My  companion,  a  cool  hand  ordinarily,  was 
engaged  in  hauling  in  his  line  with  affected  nonchalance ;  but  compressed 
lips,  stern  eye,  and  rigid  figure  said  otherwise.  There  is  a  quick  flash  in  the 
water,  and  in  comes  the  fish.  "  Eight-pounder,"  says  the  boatman. 


THE  BLUE-FISH. 

These  "  slicks"  are  not  the  least  curious  feature  of  blue-fishing.  The  fish 
seems  to  have  the  ability  to  exude  an  oil,  by  which  he  calms  the  water  so  that 
he  may,  in  a  way,  look  about  him,  showing  himself  in  this  an  adept  in  apply 
ing  a  well-known  principle  in  hydrostatics.  A  perceptible  odor  arises  from 
the  slicks,  so  that  the  boatmen  will  often  say,  "  I  smell  blue-fish." 

The  boatman  steered  among  the  tide-rips,  where  each  of  us  soon  struck  a 
fish,  or,  as  the  phrase  here  is,  "got  fast."  The  monster — I  believe  he  was  a 
ten-pounder  at  least — that  took  my  hook  threw  himself  bodily  into  the  air, 
shaking  his  head  as  if  he  did  not  mean  to  come  on  board  us.  And  he  was  as 
good  as  his  threat :  I  saw  the  drail  skipping  on  the  top  of  the  wave  as  my 
line  came  in  empty. 

In  two  hours  we  had  filled  a  barrel  with  fish,  and  it  was  time  to  shape  our 
course  harborward.  We  saw  the  smoke  of  the  Island  Home,  looking  at  first 
as  if  rising  out  of  the  Sound  ;  then  her  funnel  appeared,  and  at  length  her  hull 
rose  into  view;  but  she  was  come  within  a  mile  of  us  before  I  could  distin 
guish  her  walking-beam.  Tuckanuck  and  Low  Water  Island  were  soon  a-lee. 
Maddequet  Harbor  opened  a  moment  for  us,  but  we  did  not  enter.  We 
rounded  Eel  Point  with  a  full  sail,  and  shot  past  Whale  Rock  and  the  shoal 
of  stranded  blackfish  I  told  you  of.  Ever  and  anon  we  had  passed  one  adrift, 
stripped  of  his  fatty  epidermis,  and  now  food  for  the  sharks.  They  were 
grotesque  objects,  though  now  mere  carrion,  above  which  the.  tierce  gulls 


NANTUCKET. 


347 


BLUE-FISHING. 


screamed  noisily.  Here  is  Brant  Point,  and  its  light-house  of  red  brick.  We 
stand  well  over  for  Coatue,  then  about  with  her  for  the  home  stretch.  "  Fast 
bind  fast  find."  Our  bark  is  moored.  With  stifiened  joints,  but  light  hearts, 
we  seek  our  lodgings.  What  do  they  say  to  us?  I'  faith  I  am  not  sorry  I 
went  blue-fishing.  Reader,  are  you  ? 

Many  blue-fish  are  caught  off  the  beach  on  the  south  shore  of  the  island 
by  casting  a  line  among  the  breakers,  and  then  hauling  it  quickly  in.  This 
method  they  call  "heave  and  haul."  It  takes  an  expert  to  get  the  sleight 
of  it.  Gathering  the  line  in  a  coil  and  swinging  it  a  few  times  around  his 
head,  an  old  hand  will  cast  it  to  an  incredible  distance.  The  fish  is  also  fre 
quently  taken  in  seines  in  shallow  creeks  and  inlets,  but  he  as  often  escapes 
through  the  rents  he  has  made  in  the  net. 

I  had  three  excursions  to  make  before  I  could  say  I  had 'seen  Nantucket. 
One  was  to  the  hills  and  sands  toward  Coatue,  that  curved  like  a  sickle  around 
the  harbor;  another  was  to  Siasconset ;  and  yet  another  to  the  south  side. 
This  being  done,  I  had  not  left  much  of  the  island  unexplored. 

It  was  on  a  raw,  blustering  morning  that  I  set  out  for  a  walk  around  the 
eastern  shore  of  the  harbor.  I  saw  the  steamboat  go  out  over  the  bar,  now 
settling  down  in  the  trough,  and  now  shaking  herself  and  staggering  onward. 
Dismally  it  looked  for  a  day  in  July,  but  I  had  not  the  mending  of  it.  After 


348  THE  NEW  ENGLAND  COAST. 

getting  well  clear  of  the  town  I  found  the  hills  assuming  some  size  and  ap 
pearance  of  vegetation.  They  were  overgrown  with  wild -cranberry  vines 
bearing  stunted  fruit,  each  turning  a  little  red  cheek  to  be  kissed  by  the 
morning  sun.  Some  beautiful  flowers  sprung  from  among  the  neutral  patches 
of  heather.  The  Indian  pea,  unmatched  in  wild  beauty,  displayed  its  sump 
tuous  plume  among  the  gray  moss  or  modest  daisies. 

The  beach  grass  was  rooted  everywhere  in  the  hillocks  next  the  shore,  and 
appeared  to  be  gradually  working  its  way  inland.  I  attempted  to  pull  some 
of  it  up,  but  only  the  stalks  remained  in  my  hand.  Each  leaf  is  like  a  sword- 
blade.  Pass  your  hand  across  the  under-surface,  and  it  is  prickly  and  rough. 
What  there  formerly  was  of  soil  has  been  growing  thinner  and  thinner  by 
being  blown  into  the  sea.  Unlike  the  buffalo-grass  of  the  plains,  the  beach 
grass  possesses  little  nutriment,  though  cattle  crop  the  tender  shoots  in  spring. 
It  was  formerly  much  used  for  broom-stuff. 

I  picked  up  by  the  shore  many  scallop-shells,  and  on  the  hills  saw  many 
more  lying  where  pleasure -seekers  had  held,  as  the  saying  is,  their  "squati- 
tum"  or  picnic.  This  is  a  historical  shell.  It  surmounts  the  cap-stone  of  the 
monument  built  over  the  Rock  of  the  Forefathers  at  Plymouth.  In  the  Dark 
Ages,  a  scallop-shell  fastened  to  the  hat  was  the  accepted  sign  that  the  wearer 
had  made  a  pilgrimage  to  the  Holy  Land.  We  read  in  Parnell's  "  Hermit :" 

"  He  quits  his  cell,  the  pilgrim  staff  he  bore, 
And  fixed  the  scallop  in  his  hat  before." 

Professor  Gosse  says  there  was  a  supposed  mystical  connection  between 
the  scallop-shell  and  St.  James,  the  brother  of  the  Lord,  first  bishop  of  Jeru 
salem.  The  scallop  beds  are  usually  in  deep  water,  and  the  fish,  therefore, 
can  be  obtained  only  by  dredging.  They  are  rather  plentiful  in  JSTarraganset 
Bay.  Some,  of  a  poetic  turn,  have  called  them  the  "butterflies  of  the  sea;" 
others  a  "frill,"  from  their  fancied  resemblance  to  that  once  indispensable 
badge  of  gentility.  As  much  as  any  thing  they  look  like  an  open  fan.  Many 
other  shells  I  found,  particularly  the  valves  of  quahaugs,  and  a  periwinkle 
six  inches  in  length.  Its  shell  is  obtained  by  fastening  a  hook  in  the  fish  and 
suspending  it  by  a  string.  In  a  few  hours  the  inhabitant  drops  his  integu 
ment.  Amber  is  sometimes  picked  up  on  the  shores,  they  say,  but  none  came 
to  my  share. 

Shells  of  the  same  kind  as  those  now  common  to  the  shores  of  the  island 
have  been  found  at  the  depth  of  fifty  feet,  after  penetrating  several  strata  of 
earth  and  clay.  In  digging  as  deep  as  the  sea-level,  the  same  kind  of  sand  is 
brought  to  the  surface  as  now  makes  the  beaches,  and  the  same  inclination 
has  been  observed  that  now  exists  on  the  shores.  Mr.  Adams,  my  landlord, 
told  me  he  saw  taken  from  a  well,  at  the  depth  of  sixty  feet,  a  quantity  of 
quahaug -shells  of  the  size  of  a  half-dollar.  They  usually  have  to  go  this 
depth  in  the  sand,  and  then  get  poor,  brackish  water.  There  is  an  account 


NANTUCKET.  349 

of  the  finding  of  the  bone  of  a  whale  thirty  feet  under-ground  at  Siasconset. 
I  saw  many  covered  wells  in  Nantucket  streets  that  appeared  to  be  the  sup 
ply  of  their  immediate  neighborhoods. 

The  fogs  that  sometimes  envelop  Nantucket  gave  rise  to  a  pleasant  fic 
tion,  which  smacks  of  the  salt.  A  whaling  ship,  outward-bound,  having  been 
caught  in  one  of  unusual  density  in  leaving  the  port,  the  captain  made  a  pe 
culiar  mark  in  it  with  a  harpoon,  and  on  his  return,  after  a  three  years'  cruise, 
fell  in  with  the  harbor  at  the  very  same  spot. 

The  Indian  legend  of  the  origin  of  Nantucket  is  that  Mashope,  the  Indian 
giant,  formed  it  by  emptying  the  ashes  of  his  pipe  into  the  sea.  This  same 
Mashope,  having  in  one  of  his  excursions  lighted  his  pipe  on  the  island,  and 
sat  down  for  a  comfortable  smoke,  caused  the  fogs  that  have  since  prevailed 
there.  He  probably  waded  across  from  the  Vineyard,  when  he  wanted  a 
little  distraction  from  domestic  infelicities. 

The  residence  of  Mashope  was  in  a  cavern  known  as  the  Devil's  Den,  at 
Gay  Head.  Here  he  broiled  the  whale  on  a  fire  made  of  the  largest  trees, 
which  he  pulled  up  by  the  roots.  After  separating  No  Man's  Land  from 
Gay  Head,  metamorphosing  his  children  into  fishes,  and  throwing  his  wife  on 
Seconnet  Point,  where  she  now  lies,  a  misshapen  rock,  he  broke  up  housekeep 
ing  and  left  for  parts  unknown. 

Another  Indian  legend  ascribed  the  discovery  of  Nantucket  to  the  rav 
ages  made  by  an  eagle  among  the  children  of  the  tribes  on  Cape  Cod.  The 
bird  having  seized  a  papoose,  was  followed  by  the  parents  in  a  canoe  until 
they  came  to  the  island,  where  they  found  the  bones  of  the  child.  The  ex 
istence  of  the  island  was  not  before  suspected. 

Anciently,  the  dwellers  were  shepherds,  living  by  their  flocks  as  well  as 
by  fishing.  Every  inhabitant  had  the  right  to  keep  a  certain  number  of  sheep. 
One  day  in  the  year — formerly  the  only  holiday  kept  on  the  island — every 
body  repaired  to  the  commons.  The  sheep  were  driven  into  pens  and  sheared. 
Sheep -shearing  day  continued  the  red-letter  day  on  Nantucket  well  into 
the  present  century.  I  saw  flocks  browsing  almost  everywhere  in  my  ram 
bles,  and  thought  them  much  more  picturesque  objects  in  the  landscape  than 
corn-fields  or  vegetable  gardens.  There  is  a  freedom  about  a  shepherd's  life, 
a  communion  with  and  knowledge  of  nature  in  all  her  variable  moods,  that 
renders  it  more  attractive  than  delving  in  the  soil.  No  one  is  so  weather- 
wise  as  a  shepherd-boy.  I  liked  to  hear  the  tinkling  of  the  bells,  and  watch 
the  gambols  of  the  lambs  on  the  hill-sides. 

In  his  day,  Philip  was  lord  and  sagamore  of  the  Nantucket  Indians.  He 
came  once  to  the  island,  in  pursuit  of  a  subject  who  had  violated  savage 
laws  by  speaking  the  name  of  the  dead.  The  culprit  took  refuge  in  the 
house  of  Thomas  Macy,  and  Philip,  by  the  payment  of  a  considerable  ransom, 
was  induced  to  spare  his  life.  This  occurred  in  1665. 

The  Indian  prince  was  absolute   lord   on   land   and    sea.     Every  thing 


350  THE  NEW  ENGLAND  COAST. 

stranded  on  his  coasts — whales  or  other  wreck  of  value  found  floating  on  the 
sea  washing  his  shores — or  brought  and  landed  from  any  part  of  the  sea,  was 
no  less  his  own.  In  the  "Magnalia"  is  related  an  incident  illustrating  this 
absolutism  of  Indian  sagamores.  An  Indian  prince,  with  eighty  well-armed 
attendants,  came  to  Mr.  Mayhew's  house  at  Martha's  Vineyard.  Mayhew  en 
tered  the  room,  but,  being  acquainted  with  their  customs,  took  no  notice  of 
the  visitors,  it  being  with  them  a  point  of  honor  for  an  inferior  to  salute  the 
superior.  After  a  considerable  time  the  chief  broke  silence,  addressing  Mr. 
Mayhew  as  sachem,  a  title  importing  only  good  or  noble  birth.  The  prince 
having  preferred  some  request,  Mayhew  acceded  to  it,  adding  that  he  would 
confer  with  the  whites  to  obtain  their  consent  also.  The  Indian  demanded 
why  he  recalled  his  promise,  saying,  "What  I  promise  or  speak  is  always 
true ;  but  you,  an  English  governor,  can  not  be  true,  for  you  can  not  of  your 
self  make  true  what  you  promise." 

It  has  been  observed  that  the  island  is  gradually  wasting  away.  On  the 
east  and  south  some  hundreds  of  acres  have  been  encroached  upon  by  the 
sea,  and,  by  the  accounts  of  ancient  inhabitants,  as  many  more  on  the  north. 
During  some  years  the  sea  has  contributed  to  extend  the  shores ;  in  others 
the  waste  was  arrested ;  but  the  result  of  a  long  series  of  observations  shows 
a  constant  gain  for  the  ocean.  Smith's  Point,  now  isolated  from  the  main 
land,  once  formed  a  part  of  it,  the  s.ea  in  1786  making  a  clean  breach  through, 
and  forming  a  strait  half  a  mile  wide. 

I  have  no  wish  to  depreciate  the  value  of  real  estate  upon  Nantucket, 
but  by  the  year  3000,  according  to  our  present  calendar,  I  doubt  if  there  will 
be  more  than  a  grease-spot  remaining  to  mark  the  habitation  of  a  race  of 
vikings  whose  javelins  were  harpoons. 

Siasconset  is  the  paradise  of  the  islander:  not  to  see  it  would  be  in  his 
eyes  unpardonable.  Therefore  I  went  to  Siasconset,  or  Sconset,  as  your  true 
islander  pronounces  it,  retaining  all  the  kernel  of  the  word.  It  is  situated  on 
the  south-east  shore  of  the  island,  seven  miles  from  the  town. 

You  may  have,  for  your  excursion,  any  sort  of  vehicle  common  to  the 
main-land,  but  the  islanders  most  affect  a  cart  with  high-boarded  sides  and  a 
step  behind,  more  resembling  a  city  coal-cart  than  any  thing  else  I  can  call  to 
mind.  Though  not  like  an  Irish  jaunting-car,  it  is  of  quite  as  peculiar  con 
struction,  and,  when  filled  with  its  complement  of  gleeful  excursionists,  is  no 
bad  conveyance.  For  my  own  part,  I  would  rather  walk, but  they  will  tell  you 
every  body  rides  to  Sconset.  Take  any  vehicle  you  will,  you  can  have  only 
a  single  horse,  the  road,  or  rather  track,  being  so  deeply  rutted  that,  when 
once  in  it,  the  wheels  run  in  grooves  six  to  twelve  inches  in  depth,  while  the 
horse  jogs  along  in  a  sort  of  furrow. 

I  own  to  a  rooted  antipathy  to  carts,  going  much  farther  back  than  my 
visit  to  Nantucket.  The  one  I  rode  in  over  a  stony  road  in  Maine,  with  a 
sack  of  hay  for  a  cushion,  put  me  out  of  conceit  with  carts.  I  would  have 


NANTUCKET.  35  j 

admired  the  scenery,  had  not  my  time  been  occupied  in  holding  on,  and  in 
catching  my  breath.  I  might  have  talked  with  the  driver,  had  not  the  jolting 
put  me  under  the  necessity  of  swallowing  my  own  words,  and  nobody,  I  fancy, 
quite  likes  to  do  that.  What  little  was  said  came  out  by  jerks,  like  the  con 
fession  of  a  victim  stretched  on  the  rack.  Henceforth  I  revolted  against  hav 
ing  my  utterance  broken  on  the  wheel. 

But  when  I  came  to  be  the  involuntary  witness  of  a  family  quarrel  in  a 
cart,  I  banished  them  altogether  from  the  catalogue  of  vehicles.  "  You  are 
kept  so  very  close  to  it,  in  a  cart,  you  see.  There's  thousands  of  couples 
among  you  getting  on  like  sweet-ile  on  a  whetstone,  in  houses  five  and  six 
pairs  of  stairs  high,  that  would  go  to  the  divorce  court  in  a  cart.  Whether 
the  jolting  makes  it  worse,  I  don't  undertake  to  decide,  but  in  a  cart  it  does 
come  home  to  you,  and  stick  to  you.  Wiolence  in  a  cart  is  so  wiolent,  and 
aggrawation  in  a  cart  so  aggrawating." 

After  leaving  the  town  the  way  is  skirted,  for  some  distance,  with  scraggy, 
weird-looking  pitch-pines,  that  are  slowly  replacing  the  native  forest.  At 
every  mile  is  a  stone — set  at  the  roadside  by  the  care  of  one  native  to  this, 
and  now  an  inhabitant  of  the  most  populous  island  in  America.1  They  are 
painted  white,  and  stand  like  sentinels  by  day,  or  ghosts  by  night,  to  point 
the  way.  In  one  place  I  noticed  the  bone  of  a  shark  .stuck  in  the  ground  for 
a  landmark.  There  are  two  roads  to  Siasconset,  the  old  and  the  new.  I 
chose  the  old. 

A  stretch  of  seven  miles  across  a  lonely  prairie,  with  no  other  object  for 
the  eye  to  rest  upon  than  a  few  bare  hills  or  sunken  ponds,  brought  us  in  sight 
of  the  village  and  of  the  sea. 

The  Siasconset  of  the  past  was  neither  more  nor  less  than  a  collection  of 
fishermen's  huts,  built  of  the  simplest  materials  that  would  keep  out  wind  and 
weather.  In  the  beginnings  of  the  English  along  our  coast  these  little  fish 
ing-hamlets  were  called  "  stages."  Other  fishing-stages  were  at  Weweeders, 
Peedee,  Sesacacha,  and  Quidnet.  Of  these  Siasconset  alone  has  flourished. 
All  early  navigators  and  writers  agree  that  the  waters  hereaway  were  abun 
dantly  stocked  with  the  cod. 

I  found  the  village  pleasantly  seated  along  the  margin  of  the  bluif,  that 
rises  here  well  above  the  sea.  Behind  it  the  land  swelled  again  so  as  to  in 
tercept  the  view  of  the  town.  Underneath  the  cliff  is  a  terrace  of  sand,  to 
which  a  flight  of  steps,  eked  out  with  a  footpath,  assists  the  descent.  Here 
were  lying  a  number  of  dories,  and  one  or  two  singular-looking  fish-carts, 
with  a  cask  at  one  end  for  a  wheel.  A  fish-house,  with  brush  flakes  about  it, 
and  a  pile  of  wreck  lumber,  completed  what  man  might  have  a  title  to.  This 
terrace  pitches  abruptly  into  the  sea,  with  a  regularity  of  slope  like  the  glacis 
of  a  fortress.  It  would  never  do  to  call  the  Atlantic  a  ditch,  yet  you  seem 

1  Rev.  F.  C.  Ewer,  of  New  York. 


352 


THE  NEW  ENGLAND  COAST. 


HOMES   OF   THE   FISHERMEN,  SIASCONSET. 

standing  on  a  parapet  of  sand.  The  sand  here  appears  composed  of  particles 
of  granite;  in  other  parts  of  the  island  it  is  like  the  drift  at  Cape  Cod. 

The  village  is  an  odd  collection  of  one-story  cottages,  so  alike  that  the 
first  erected  might  have  served  as  a  pattern  for  all  others.  Iron  cranes  pro 
jected  from  angles  of  the  houses,  on  which  to  hang  lanterns  at  night-fall,  in 
place  of  street-lamps.  Fences,  neatly  whitewashed  or  painted,  inclosed  each 
householder's  possession,  and  in  many  instances  blooming  flower-beds  caused 
an  involuntary  glance  at  the  window  for  their  guardians.  On  many  houses 
were  the  names  of  wrecks  that  had  the  seeming  of  grave-stones  overlooking 
the  sands  that  had  entombed  the  ships  that  wore  them.  In  one  front  yard 
was  the  carved  figure  of  a  woman  that  had  been  filliped  by  the  foam  of  many 
a  sea.  Fresh  from  the  loftier  buildings  and  broader  streets  of  the  town,  this 
seemed  like  one  of  those  miniature  villages  that  children  delight  in. 

Looking  off  seaward,  I  could  descry  no  sails.  The  last  objects  on  the  hori 
zon  line  were  white-crested  breakers  combing  above  the  "  gulf  or  ship-swal- 
lower"  lying  in  wait  beneath  them.  It  is  a  dangerous  sea,  and  Nantucket 
Shoals  have  obtained  a  terrible  celebrity — unequaled,  perhaps,  even  by  the 
Goodwin  Sands,  that  mariners  shudder  at  the  mention  of.  If  a  ship  grounds 
on  the  Shoal  she  is  speedily  wrenched  in  pieces  by  the  power  of  the  surf. 
They  will  tell  you  of  a  brig  (the  Poinsett)  that  came  ashore  on  the  south 
side  with  her  masts  in  her,  apparently  uninjured.  Two  days'  pounding 
strewed  the  beach  with  her  timbers.  "A  ship  on  the  Shoals !"  is  a  sound 
that  will  quicken  the  pulses  of  men  familiar  with  danger.  I  suppose  the  calam- 


NANTUCKET. 


353 


itous  boom  of  a  minute-gun  has  often  roused  the  little  fishing-hamlet  to  exer 
tions  of  which  a  few  human  lives  were  the  guerdon.  Heard  amidst  the  accom 
paniments  of  tempest,  gale,  and  the  thunder  of  the  breakers,  it  might  well 
thrill  the  listener  with  fear;  or,  if  unheard,  the  lightning  flashes  would  tell 
the  watchers  that  wood  and  iron  still  held  together,  and  that  hope  was  not 
yet  extinct. 

It  may  be  that  the  great  Nantucket  South  Shoal,  forty-five  miles  in  breadth 
by  fifty  in  length,  tends  to  the  preservation  of  the  island,  for  which  it  is  a 
breakwater.  The  great  extent  of  shallows  on  both  sides  of  the  island,  with 
the  known  physical  changes,  would  almost  justify  the  belief  that  these  sanJs 
and  this  island  once  formed  part  of  the  main-land  of  New  England. 

Much  is  claimed,  doubtless  with  justice,  for  the  salubrity  of  Siasconset  air. 
Many  resort  thither  during  the  heats  of  midsummer.  I  found  denizens  of 
Nantucket  who,  it  would  seem,  had  enough  of  sea  and  shore  at  home,  domes 
ticated  in  some  wee  cottage.  The  season  over,  houses  are  shut  up,  and  the 
village  goes  into  winter-quarters.  The  greensward,  elevation  above  the  sea, 
and  pure  air  are  its  credentials.  I  saw  it  on  a  sunny  day,  looking  its  best. 

The  sand  is  coarse-grained  and  very  soft.  There  is  no  beach  on  the  island 
firm  enough  for  driving,  or  even  tolerable  walking.  The  waves  that  came  in 
here  projected  themselves  fully  forty  feet  up  the  escarpment  of  the  bank  that  I 


THE   SEA-BLUFF,  SIASCONSET. 
23 


354 


THE  NEW  ENGLAND  COAST. 


have  spoken  of.  I  recollect  that,  having  chosen  what  I  believed  a  safe  position, 
I  was  overtaken  by  a  wave,  and  had  to  beat  a  hasty  retreat.  Bathing  here  is, 
on  account  of  the  under-tow  and  quicksands,  attended  with  hazard,  and  ought 
not  to  be  attempted  except  with  the  aid  of  ropes.  Willis  talks  of  the  tenth 
wave.  I  know  about  the  third  of  the  swell,  for  I  have  often  watched  it. 
The  first  and  second  are  only  forerunners  of  the  mighty  one.  The  dories 
come  in  on  it.  A  breaker  fell  here  every  five  seconds,  by  the  watch. 

We  returned  by  the  foreland  of  Sankoty  Head,  on  which  a  light-house 
stands.  From  an  eminence  here  the  sea  is  visible  on  both  sides  of  the  island. 
When  built,  this  light  was  unsurpassed  in  brilliancy  by  any  on  the  coast, 
and  was  considered  equal  to  the  magnificent  beacon  of  the  Morro.  Fisher 
men  called  it  the  blazing  star.  Its  flashes  are  very  full,  vivid,  and  striking, 
and  its  position  is  one  of  great  importance,  as  warning  the  mariner  to  steer 
wide  of  the  great  Southern  Shoal.  Seven  miles  at  sea  the  white  flash  takes  a 
reddish  hue. 


HAULING  A  DORY  OVER   THE  HILLS,  NANTUCKET. 

The  following  afternoon  I  walked  across  the  island  to  the  south  shore  at 
Surfside,  a  distance  of  perhaps  three  miles  or  more.  A  south-west  gale  that 
had  prevailed  for  twenty-four  hours  led  me  to  expect  an  angry  and  tumultu 
ous  sea;  nor  was  I  disappointed:  the  broad  expanse  between  shore  and  hori 
zon  was  a  confused  mass  of  foam  and  broken  water.  It  was  a  mournful  sea : 
not  a  sail  nor  a  living  soul  was  in  sight.  A  few  sand-birds  and  plover  piped 
plaintively  to  the  hoarse  diapason  of  the  billows. 

Here  I  saw  a  sunset  in  a  gale;  the  sun,  as  the  sailors  say,  "setting  up 


NANTUCKET. 


355 


LIGHT-HOUSE,  SANKOTY  HEAD,  NANTCCKET. 

shrouds  and  backstays" — screened 
from  view  by  a  mass  of  dark  clouds,  yet  pouring 
down  from  behind  them  through  interstices  upon 
the  bounds  of  the  sea,  the  rays  having  somewhat 
the  appearance  of  golden  ropes  arising  from  the 
ocean  and  converging  to  an  unseen  point. 

I  seated  myself  in  one  of  the  dories  on  the  beach  and  gazed  my  fill.  Say 
what  you  will,  there  is  a  mighty  fascination  in  the  sea.  Darkness  surprised 
me  before  I  had  recrossed  the  lonely  moor,  and  I  held  my  way,  guided  by  the 
deep  cart-ruts,  until  the  lights  of  the  town  twinkled  their  welcome  before  me. 
It  was  my  last  night  on  sea-girt  Nantucket.  I  do  not  deny  that  I  left  it  with 
reluctance. 


NEWPORT,  FROM  FORT  ADAMS. 


CHAPTER  XXII. 

NEWPORT    OF   AQUIDNECK. 

"This  castle  hath  a  pleasant  seat:   the  air 
Nimbly  and  sweetly  recommends  itself 
Unto  our  gentle  senses." — Macbeth. 

"VIEWPORT  is  an  equivoque.  It  is  old,  and  yet  not;  grave,  though  gay; 
-^  opulent  and  poor;  splendid  and  mean;  populous  or  deserted.  As  the 
only  place  in  New  England  where  those  who  flee  from  one  city  are  content 
to  inhabit  another,  it  is  anomalous. 

In  his  "Trois  Mousquetaires"  Alexander  Dumas  makes  his  giant,  Porthos, 
encounter  a  ludicrous  adventure.  The  guardsman  is  the  complacent  pos 
sessor  of  a  magnificent  golden  sword-belt,  the  envy  of  his  comrades,  until  on 
one  unlucky  day  it  is  discovered  that  the  half  concealed  beneath  his  cloak  is 
nothing  but  leather;  whereupon  some  sword-thrusts  occur.  It  was  M.  Bes- 
rneaux,  afterward  governor  of  the  Bastile,  who  was  the  real  hero  of  the  sword- 
belt — half  gold,  half  leather — that  Dumas  has  hung  on  the  shoulders  of  his 
gigantic  guardsman. 

Newport's  ocean  side  is  belted  with  modern  villas,  costly,  showy,  and  or 
nate.  They  mask  the  town  in  splendid  succession,  as  if  each  had  been  built 
to  surpass  its  neighbor.  This  is  the  Newport  of  to-day.  Behind  it,  old,  gray, 
and  commonplace  by  comparison,  is  the  Newport  of  other  days.  The  differ 
ence  between  the  two  is  very  marked.  The  old  town  is  the  effete  body  into 
which  the  new  is  infusing  young  blood,  warming  and  invigorating  it  into  new 
life.  If  the  figure  were  permissible,  we  should  say  the  Queen  of  Aquidneck 
had  drunk  of  the  elixir  of  life,  so  unexampled  is  the  rapidity  with  which  she 
transfigures  herself. 

I  like  Newport  because  it  is  old,  quaint,  and  peculiar.     Though  far  from  in- 


NEWPORT  OF  AQUIDNECK.  357 

sensible  to  its  difficult  feats  in  architecture,  I  did  not  come  to  see  fine  bouses. 
To  me  they  embody  nothing  besides  the  idea  of  wealth  and  luxurious  ease. 
Many  of  them  are  as  remarkable  for  elegance  as  are  others  for  ugliness  of 
design ;  yet  I  found  it  much  the  same  as  walking  in  Fifth  Avenue  or  Bea 
con  Street.  They  are  at  first  bewildering,  then  monotonous ;  or,  as  Ruskin 
says  of  types  of  form,  mere  form,  "  You  learn  not  to  see  them.  You  don't 
look  at  them." 

I  said  Newport  was  commonplace,  and  I  said  it  with  mental  reservation. 
It  has  a  matchless  site,  glorious  bay,  and  delicious  climate,  that  many  have 
been  willing,  perhaps  a  little  too  willing,  to  compare  with  Italy.  If  we  have 
in  New  England  any  phase  of  climate  we  may  safely  match  with  that  favored 
land,1  I  frankly  concede  Newport  possesses  it.  The  Gulf  Stream  approaches 
near  enough  to  temper  in  summer  the  harshness  of  sea-breezes,  and  the  rigor 
of  cold  northern  winds  in  winter.  The  only  faults  I  had  to  find  with  the 
summer  and  autumn  aspects  of  Newport  climate  were  the  fogs  and  humidity 
of  the  nights.  The  pavements  are  frequently  wet  as  if  by  light  showers. 
This  condition  of  the  atmosphere  is  the  plague  of  laundresses  and  hair-dress 
ers  at  the  great  houses:  the  ringlets  you  see  in  Newport  are  natural. 

When  at  the  Isles  of  Shoals,  we  were  a  "thin  under-waistcoat  warmer" 
than  on  the  main-land.  Neal  says  it  is  a  coat  warmer  in  winter  at  Newport 
than  at  Boston.  I  remarked  that  evening  promenaders  in  the  streets  there 
were  more  thinly  clothed  than  would  be  considered  prudent  elsewhere.  In 
Newport,  according  to  Neal,  it  would  lose  much  point  to  say  a  man  was  with 
out  a  coat  to  his  back.  Mr.  Cooper,  in  the  "Red  Rover,"  calls  attention  to 
the  magnificent  harbor  of  Newport  in  the  language  of  the  practiced  seaman. 
It  fully  meets  all  the  requisites  of  easy  approach,  safe  anchorage,  and  quiet 
basin.  Isles  and  promontories,  frowning  with  batteries,  shield  it  from  danger 
or  insult.  The  verdure  of  the  shores  is  of  the  most  brilliant  green,  and  grows 
quite  to  the  water's  edge,  or  to  the  verge  of  the  cliffs.  In  a  calm  day,  when 
the  water  is  ruffled  only  by  light  airs,  the  tints  of  sea  and  sky  are  scarcely 
different :  then  the  bay  really  looks  like 

"Un  pezzo  di  cielo  caduto  in  terra." 

In  approaching  Newport  from  sea,  after  weathering  much-dreaded  Point 
Judith,2  we  shall  fall  in  with  the  light-vessel  anchored  ofFBrenton's  Reef,  the 
extreme  south-west  point  of  the  island  of  Rhode  Island.  At  the  same  time 
the  light-house  on  Beaver  Tail3  flashes  greeting,  and  we  may  now  enter  the 


1  At  Naples  the  summer  temperature  is  seldom  above  73° ;  in  winter  it  does  not  fall  below  47°. 

2  Point  Judith  is  named  from  Judith  Quincy,  the  wife  of  John  Hull,  coiner  of  the  rare  old  pine- 
tree  shillings  of  1652. 

8  Beaver  Tail  is  a  peninsula  at  the  southern  extremity  of  Canonicut  Island,  so  named  from  its 
marked  resemblance,  on  the  map,  to  the  appendage  of  the  beaver. 


358 


THE  NEW  ENGLAND  COAST. 


OLD  FORT,  DUMPLING ROCKS. 


port  with  confidence.  Passing  beside  the  "Dumplings"  and  the  old  round 
tower,  perched  on  a  projecting  and  almost  insulated  rock,  we  steer  under 
the  walls  of  Fort  Adams.1  Sleepy  fishing-boats,  coming  in  with  the  morn 
ing's  flood,  are  sent,  with 
rattling  blocks,  and  sails  idly 
flapping,  reeling  and  rocking 
on  big  waves  caused  by  the 
majestic  onward  march  of 
our  great  steamer ;  the  beat 
of  the  paddles  comes  audibly 
back  from  rocks  washed  for 
a  moment  by  our  attendant 
wave.  As  wre  round  the 
fortress  the  bugles  play.  A 
ball  goes  quickly  up  to  the 
very  top  of  the  flag-staif; 
there  is  a  flash,  and  a  roar  of  the  morning  gun  ;  and  when  the  smoke 
drifts  slowly  before  the  breeze,  we  see  the  dear  old  flag  blowing  out  clear, 
with  every  stripe  still  there,  and  never  a  reproach  in  one  of  them.  At  our 
right,  and  close  inshore,  is  Lime  Rock  Light,  with  its  associations  of  female 
heroism.2  At  the  left  is  Goat  Island,  long  and  low,  with  Fort  Wolcott  and 
pleasant  cottages  for  the  officers  of  the  torpedo  station.3  Beyond,  rising  tier 
above  tier,  with  the  beautiful  spire  of  Trinity  Church  in  its  midst,  is  New 
port. 

Newport  has  been  compared  to  the  Lothians  and  to  the  Isle  of  Wight, 
the  British  Eden.  By  all  old  travelers  it  was  admitted  to  be  the  paradise 
of  New  England.  Its  beautiful  and  extensive  bay  reminds  Scotsmen  of  the 
Clyde.  In  fact,  every  traveled  person  at  once  estimates  it  with  what  has 
hitherto  impressed  him  most — an  involuntary  but  sure  recognition  of  its 
charms. 

Previous  to  the  Revolution,  Newport  wras  the  fourth  commercial  town  in 
the  colonies,  once  having  more  than  nine  thousand  inhabitants.  It  was  at 
first  tributary  to  Boston,  sending  its  corn,  pork,  and  tobacco  to  be  exchanged 

1  Fort  Adams  is  situated  at  the  upper  (northern)  end  of  a  point  of  land  which  helps  to  form  the 
harbor  of  Newport ;  it  also  incloses  a  piece  of  water  called  Brenton's  Cove. 

2  By  our  American  Grace  Darling,  Miss  Ida  Lewis. 

3  Goat  Island  was  the  site  of  a  colonial  fortress.     During  the  reign  of  King  William,  Colonel 
Romer  advised  the  fortification  of  Rhode  Island,  which  he  says  had  never  been  done  "by  reason 
of  the  mean  condition  and  refractoriness  of  the  inhabitants."     In  1744  the  fort  on  Goat  Island 
mounted  twelve  cannon.     At  the  beginning  of  the  Revolution  General  Lee,  and  afterward  Colonel 
Knox,  marked  out  defensive  works  ;  but  they  do  not  appear  to  have  been  executed  when  the  British, 
on  the  same  day  that  Washington  crossed  the  Delaware,  took  possession  of  the  island.     The  Whigs, 
in  1775,  removed  the  cannon  from  the  batteries  in  the  harbor.     Major  L'Enfant,  the  engineer  of 
West  Point,  was  the  author  of  Fort  Wolcott. 


NEWPORT  OF  AQUIDNECK.  359 

for  European  goods.  Its  commercial  recovery  from  the  prostration  in  which 
the  old  war  left  it  was  again  arrested  by  that  of  1812;  and  this  time  it  did 
not  rise  again.  The  whale-fishery  was  introduced  and  abandoned:  writers 
of  this  period  describe  it  as  lifeless,  with  every  mark  of  dilapidation  and  de 
cay.  The  salubrity  of  the  climate  of  Newport  had  long  been  acknowledged, 
and  before  1820  it  had  become  a  place  of  resort  for  invalids  from  the  South 
ern  States  and  the  West  Indies.  This  one  original  gift  has  ever  since  been 
out  at  interest,  until,  where  a  few  acres  of  grass  once  flourished,  you  might 
cover  the  ground  with  dollars  before  you  became  its  owner.1 

At  Newport  the  visitor  is  challenged  by  past  and  present,  each  having 
large  claims  on  his  attention.  I  spent  much  of  my  time  among  old  houses, 
monuments,  and  churches.  Some  of  these  are  in  public  places  and  are  easily 
found,  while  others  are  hidden  away  in  forgotten  corners,  or  screened  from 
observation  by  the  walls  of  intervening  buildings.  As  is  inevitable  in  such  a 
place,  the  visitor  will  unwittingly  pass  by  many  objects  that  he  will  be  cu 
rious  to  see,  and  in  retracing  his  footsteps  will  have  occasion  to  remark  how 
much  a  scrap  of  history  or  tradition  adds  to  the  charm  of  an  otherwise  unin 
teresting  structure. 

The  town  along  the  water  resembles  Salem,  except  that  it  has  neither  its 
look  of  antiquity  nor  its  dilapidation.  Here  the  principal  thoroughfare  is 
Thames  Street,  long,  narrow,  and  almost  wholly  built  of  wood.  The  narrow 
ness  of  Thames  Street  has  been  referred  to  the  encroachments  of  builders  of 
a  former  time,  the  old  houses  standing  at  some  distance  back  from  the  pave 
ment  being  pointed  to  as  evidence  of  the  fact.  I  can  only  vouch  for  glimpses 
of  some  very  habitable  and  inviting  old  residences  in  back  courts  and  alleys 
opening  upon  the  street.  Here,  too,  old  gambrel-roofed  houses  are  plenty  as 
blackberries  in  August.  They  have  a  portly,  aldermanic  look,  with  great 
breadth  of  beam,  like  ships  of  their  day.  When  these  houses  that  now  stand 
end  to  the  street  had  pleasant  garden  spots  between,  a  walk  here  would  have 
been  worth  the  taking.  When  there  were  no  sidewalks,  it  meant  something 
to  give  the  wall  to  your  neighbor,  and  tact  and  breeding  were  requisite  to 
know  when  to  demand  and  when  to  decline  it. 

In  Thames  Street  are  several  imperturbable  notables  in  brick  or  wood. 
The  City  Hall — for  as  early  as  1784  Newport  had  reached  the  dignity  of  a 
city — is  usually  first  encountered.  Notwithstanding  they  tell  you  it  was  one 

1  There  should  be  added  to  the  detail  of  maps  given  in  the  initial  chapter  that  of  Jerome  Ver- 
rnzani,  in  the  College  de  Propaganda  Fide,  at  Rome,  of  the  supposed  date  of  1529.  This  map  is 
described  and  discussed,  together  with  the  detail  of  Giovanni  Verrazani's  letter  to  Francis  I., 
dated  at  Dieppe,  July  8th,  1524,  in  "  Verrazano,  the  Navigator,"  by  J.  C.  Brevoort,  A  reduced 
copy  of  the  map  or  "  Planisphere  "  is  there  given.  The  author  adopts  the  theory,  not  without 
plausibility,  that  Verrazani  passed  fifteen  days  at  anchor  in  Narraganset  Bay.  As  I  have  before 
said,  there  is  something  of  fact  in  these  early  relations;  but  if  tested  by  the  only  exact  marks  given 
(latitude,  distances,  and  courses),  they  establish  nothing. 


360 


THE  NEW  ENGLAND  COAST. 


of  Peter  Harrison's1  buildings,  it  is  very  ordinary-looking,  inside  and  out.  It 
was  built  on  arches,  which  indicates  the  lower  floor  to  have  been  intended  as 
a  public  promenade ;  and  shows  that  the  architect  had  the  Old  Royal  Ex 
change  in  mind.  For  some  time  it  was  used  as  a  market.  This  house  came 
into  the  little  world  of  Newport  in  1763.  A  word  of  admiration  from  All- 
ston  has  long  been  treasured. 

In  this  building  I  saw  hanging  the  escutcheon  of  William  Coddington, 
who,  as  every  body  at  all  familiar  with  the  history  of  Rhode  Island  knows, 
was  one  of  the  founders  of  Newport,  and  first  governor  of  the  little  body  pol 
itic  organized  upon  the  Isle  of  Aquidneck. 


OLD-TIME   HOUSES. 

We  have  decided  to  cast  a  glance  backward,  and,  to  know  our  ground, 
must  pay  our  duty  to  this  old  founder.  William  Coddington,  Esquire,  came 
to  New  England  in  1630  with  the  Boston  colonists,  as  one  of  the  assistants 
named  in  their  charter.  He  was  several  times  rechosen  to  this  important  po 
sition,  became  a  leading  merchant  in  Boston,  and  is  said  to  have  built  the 
first  brick  house  there.2  The  house  he  afterward  built  and  lived  in  at  New 
port,  of  the  quaint  old  English  pattern,  was  standing  within  the  recollection 
of  many  older  inhabitants. 

Mr.  Coddington  became  involved  in  the  Anne  Hutchinson  controversy,  as 
did  Wheelwright,  the  founder  of  Exeter.  Mrs.  Hutchinson  was  banished,  and 
took  refuge  with  Coddington  and  others  on  Rhode  Island.  In  the  presence 

1  Harrison,  the  first  architect  of  his  day  in  New  England,  was  the  author  of  many  of  the  older 
public  buildings  in  Newport,  Trinity  Church  and  Redwood  Library  among  others.     He  also  designed 
King's  Chapel,  Boston,  and  did  what  he  could  to  drag  architecture  out  of  the  mire  of  Puritan  ugli 
ness  and  neglect. 

2  He  owned,  besides  his  house  and  garden  in  Boston,  lands  at  Mount  Wollaston,  now  Quincy, 
Massachusetts.     Coddington  is  mentioned  ih    Samuel   Fuller's  letter  to  Bradford,  June,  1630. 
"Mrs.  Cottington  is  dead,"  he  also  says. 


NEWPORT  OF  AQUIDNECK. 


361 


of  Governor  Winthrop  and  of  Dudley,  his  deputy ;  of  the  assistants,  among 
whom  were  Endicott,  Bradstreet,  and  Stoughton ;  confronted  by  the  foremost 
and  hardest-shell 
ed  ministers  in  L.A^¥^ 
the  colony,  such 
as  Hugh  Peters, 
Eliot,  and  Wil 
son,  this  wom 
an  defended  her 
self,  almost  single- 
handed  and  with 
consummate  ad 
dress,  against  a 
court  which  had 
already  prejudg 
ed  her  case,  and 
which  stubbornly 
refused,  until  the 
very  last  stage  of 
the  proceedings, 
to  put  the  wit 
nesses  upon  oath. 
As  a  specimen  of 
the  way  in  which 

justice  was  administered  in  the  early  day,  and  of  judicial  procedure,  this 
trial  is  exceedingly  curious.1  Here  is  a  specimen  of  brow-beating  that  re 
calls  "Oliver  Twist:" 

Deputy-governor.  "Let  her  witnesses  be  called." 

Governor.  "  Who  be  they  ?" 

Mrs.  Hutchinson.  "Mr.  Leveret,  and  our  teacher,  and  Mr.  Coggeshall." 

Governor.  "  Mr.  Coggeshall  was  not  present." 

Mr.  Coggeshall.  "Yes,  but  I  was,  only  I  desired  to  be  silent  until  I  was 
called." 

Governor.  "Will  you,  Mr.  Coggeshall,  say  that  she  did  not  say  so?" 

Mr.  Coggeshall.  "Yes,  I  dare  say  that  she  did  not  say  all  that  which  they 
lay  against  her." 

Mr.  Peters.  "  How  dare  you  look  into  the  court  to  say  such  a  word  ?" 

Mr.  Coggeshall.  "  Mr.  Peters  takes  upon  him  to  forbid  me.    I  shall  be  silent." 

As  the  governor  was  about  to  pass  sentence,  Mr.  Coddington  arose  and 
spoke  some  manly  words: 


RESIDENCE   OF   GOVERNOR   CODDINGTON,  NEWPORT,  1641. 


1  It  may  be  found  at  length  in  Hutchinson,  appendix,  vol.  ii.     Governor  Hutchinson  was  a  rel 
ative  of  the  schismatic  Anne. 


362  THE  NEW  ENGLAND  COAST. 

Mr.  Coddington.  "  I  do  think  that  you  are  going  to  censure,  therefore  I 
desire  to  speak  a  word." 

Governor.  "I  pray  you  speak." 

Mr.  Coddington.  "  There  is  one  thing  objected  against  the  meetings.  What 
if  she  designed  to  edify  her  own  family  in  her  own  meetings,  may  none  else 
be  present?" 

Governor.  "  If  you  have  nothing  else  to  say  but  that,  it  is  a  pity,  Mr.  Cod 
dington,  that  you  should  interrupt  us  in  proceeding  to  censure." 

Despite  this  reproof,  Mr.  Coddington  had  his  say,  and  one  of  the  assistants 
(Stoughton)  insisting,  the  ministers  were  compelled  to  repeat  their  testimony 
under  oath ;  which  they  did  after  much  parleying  and  with  evident  reluc 
tance.  It  is  curious  to  observe  that  in  this  trial  the  by-standers  were  several 
times  appealed  to  for  an  expression  of  opinion  on  some  knotty  question.1  Had 
it  not  involved  the  liberty  and  fortunes  of  many  more  than  the  Hutchinsons, 
its  ludicrous  side  would  scarcely  have  been  surpassed  by  the  celebrated  cause 
of  "  Bardell  vs.  Pickwick." 

There  is  something  inexpressibly  touching  in  the  decay  of  an  old  and  hon 
orable  name — in  the  struggle  between  grinding  poverty  and  hereditary  fam 
ily  pride.  Instead  of  finding  the  Coddingtons,  as  might  be  expected,  among 
the  princes  of  Newport,  a  native  of  the  place  would  only  shake  his  head  when 
questioned  of  them. 

Touching  the  northern  limits  of  Newport  is  a  placid  little  basin  called 
Coddington's  Cove.  It  is  a  remembrancer  of  the  old  governor.  The  last  Cod 
dington  inherited  an  ample  estate,  upon  the  principal  of  which,  like  Heine's 
monkey,  who  boiled  and  ate  his  own  tail,  he  lived,  until  there  was  no  more 
left.  The  Cossacks  have  a  proverb :  "  He  eats  both  ends  of  his  candle  at 
once."  Having  dissipated  his  ancestral  patrimony  to  the  last  farthing,  the 
thriftless  and  degenerate  Coddington  descended  all  the  steps  from  shabby 
gentility  to  actual  destitution  ;  yet,  through  all  these  reverses,  he  maintained 
the  bearing  of  a  fine  gentleman.  One  day  he  was  offered  a  new  suit  of  clothes 
— his  own  had  the  threadbare  gloss  of  long  application  of  the  brush — for  the 
Coddington  escutcheon  that  had  descended  to  him.  Drawing  himself  up  with 
the  old  look  and  air,  he  indignantly  exclaimed,  "  What,  sell  the  coat  of  arms 
of  a  Coddington !"  Nevertheless,  he  at  last  became  an  inmate  of  the  poor- 
house  at  Coddington's  Cove ;  and  that  is  the  way  the  family  escutcheon  came 
to  be  hanging  in  the  City  Hall.  I  tell  you  the  story  as  it  was  told  to  me. 

The  Wanton  House,  still  pointed  out  in  Thames  Street,  may  be  known  by 
its  ornamented  cornice  and  general  air  of  superior  condition.  It  stands  within 
a  stone's-throw  of  the  City  Hall.  The  Wantons,  like  the  Malbones,  Godfreys, 
Brentons,  Wickhams,  Cranstons,  and  other  high-sounding  Newport  names, 


1  This  was  called  an  appeal  to  the  country.     A  judge  would  hardly,  at  the  present  day,  permit 
such  an  expression  in  court. 


NEWPORT  OF  AQUIDNECK. 


363 


were  merchants.  Like  the  Wentworths  of  New  Hampshire,  this  was  a  family, 
I  might  almost  say  a  dynasty,  of  governors.  When  one  Wanton  went  out, 
another  came  in.  It  was  the  house  of  Wanton,  governing,  with  few  intervals, 
from  1732,  until  swept  from  place  by  the  Revolution.1  As  the  king  never  dies, 
at  the  exit  of  a  Wanton  the  sheriff  should  have  announced,  "  The  governor  is 
dead.  Long  live  the  governor  !" 

Joseph  Wanton,  the  last  governor  of  Rhode  Island  under  the  crown,  was 
the  son  of  William.  He  was  a  Harvard  man,  amiable,  wealthy,  of  elegant 
manners,  and  handsome  person.  In  the  description  of  his  outward  appearance 
we  are  told  that  he  "  wore  a  large  white  wig  with  three  curls,  one  falling 
down  his  back,  and  one  forward  on  each  shoulder."  I  have  nowhere  met  with 
an  earlier  claimant  of  the  fashion  so  recently  in  vogue  among  young  ladies 
who  had  hearts  to  lose. 

Turning  out  of  narrow  and  noisy  Thames  Street  into  the  broader  and 
quieter  avenues  ascending  the  hill,  we 
find  ourselves  on  the  Parade  before  the  -'v  ~ 

j 

State-house.  Broad  Street,  which  en 
ters  it  on  one  side,  was  the  old  Boston 
high-road ;  Touro  Street,  debouching  at 
the  other,  loses  its  identity  ere  long  in 
Bellevue  Avenue,  and  is,  beyond  com 
parison,  the  pleasantest  walk  in  New 
port. 

The  Parade,  also  called  Washington 
Square,  is  the  delta  into  which  the  main 
avenues  of  Newport  flow.  It  is,  there 
fore,  admirably  calculated  as  a  starting- 
point  for  those  street  rambles  that  every 
visitor  has  enjoyed  in  anticipation.  On 
this  ground  I  saw  some  companies  of 
the  Newport  Artillery  going  through  their  evolutions  with  the  steadiness  of 
old  soldiers.  Their  organization  goes  back  to  1741,  and  is  maintained  with  an 
esprit  de  corps  that  a  people  not  long  since  engaged  in  war  ought  to  know 
how  to  estimate  at  its  true  value.  A  custom  of  the  corps,  as  I  have  heard, 
was  to  fire  a  feu  de  joie  under  the  windows  of  a  newly  married  comrade; 
if  a  commissioned  officer,  a  field-piece. 

At  the  right  of  the  Parade,  and  a  little  above  the  hotel  of  his  name,  stands 
the  house  purchased  by  Commodore  Perry  after  the  battle  of  Lake  Erie ;  in 


NEWPORT    STATE-HOUSE. 


1  William  Wanton,  1732  to  1734  ;  John  Wanton,  1734  to  1741 ;  Gideon  Wanton,  1745  to  1746, 
and  from  1747  to  1748 ;  Joseph  Wanton,  from  1769  to  1775.  The  last  named  left  Newport  with 
the  British,  in  1780,  and  died  in  New  York.  His  son  Joseph,  junior,  commanded  the  regiment 
of  loyalists  raised  on  the  island. 


364 


THE  NEW  ENGLAND  COAST. 


COMMODORE   PERRY'S   HOUSE. 


Clarke  Street,  near-by,  is  the  church  in  which  Dr.  Stiles,  afterward  president 
of  Yale,  preached,  built  in  1733;  and  next  beyond  is  the  gun-house  of  the 
Newport  Artillery. 

The  State-house  is  a  pleasing,  though  not  imposing,  building,  known  to 

all  evening  promenaders  in 
Newport  by  the  illuminated 
clock  in  the  pediment  of  the 
fa9ade.  It  is  in  the  style 
of  colonial  architecture  of 
the  middle  of  the  last  centu 
ry,  having  two  stories,  with 
a  wooden  balustrade  sur 
mounting  the  roof.  The 
pediment  of  the  front  is 
topped  by  a  cupola,  and 
underneath  is  a  balcony, 
from  which  proclamations, 
with  "God  save  the  king" 
at  the  end  of  them,  have 
been  read  to  assembled  colonists;  as  in  these  latter  days,  on  the  last  Tues 
day  of  May,  which  is  the  annual  election  in  Rhode  Island,  after  a  good  deal 
of  parading  about  the  streets,  the  officials  elect  are  here  introduced  by  the 
high  sheriff  with  a  flourish  of  words  :  "  Hear  ye  !  Take  notice  that  his 
Excellency,  Governor  -  — ,  of  Dashville,  is  elected  governor,  commander- 
in- chief,  and  captain  -  general  of  Rhode  Island  for  the  year  ensuing.  God 
save  the  State  of  Rhode  Ibland,  and  Providence  Plantations  !"  The  candi 
date  smiles,  bows,  and  withdraws,  and  the  populace,  as  in  duty  bound,  cheers 
itself  hoarse.  It  loves  the  old  forms,  though  some  of  them  seem  cumbrous 
for  "Little  Rhody."  Sometimes  a  sheriff  has  been  known  to  get  his  formula 
"out  of  joint,"  and  to  tack  the  words  "for  the  year  ensuing"  at  the  end  of 
the  invocation. 

During  the  Revolution  the  State-house  was  used  as  a  hospital  by  British 
and  French,  and  of  course  much  abused.  In  the  restoration  some  little  savor 
of  its  ancient  quaintness  is  missed.  The  interior  has  paneled  wainscoting, 
carved  balusters,  and  wood-work  in  the  old  style  of  elegance.  The  walls  of 
the  Senate  chamber  are  sheathed  quite  up  to  the  ceiling,  in  beautiful  panel 
ing,  relieved  by  a  massive  cornice.  Stuart's  full-length  portrait  of  Washing 
ton,  in  the  wrell-known  black  velvet  and  ruffles,  is  here.  I  have  somewhere 
seen  that  the  French  "  desecrated,"  as  some  would  say,  the  building  by  rais 
ing  an  altar  on  which  to  say  mass  for  the  sick  and  dying.  In  the  garret  I 
saw  a  section  of  the  old  pillory  that  formerly  stood  in  the  vacant  space  be 
fore  the  building.  Many  think  the  restoration  of  stocks,  whipping-post,  and 
pillory  would  do  more  to-day  to  suppress  petty  crimes  than  months  of  im- 


NEWPORT  OF  AQUIDNECK. 


365 


prisonment.     They  still  cling  in  Delaware  to  their  whipping-post.     There, 
they  assert,  the  dread  of  public  exposure  tends  to  lessen  crime. 

The  pillory,  which  a  few  living  persons  remember,  was  usually  on  a  mov 
able  platform,  which  the  sheriff  could  turn  at  pleasure,  making  the  culprit 
front  the  different  points  of  the  compass  it  was  the  custom  to  insert  in  the 
sentence.  Whipping  at  the  cart's  tail  was  also  practiced. 

One  of  the  finest  old  characters  Rhode  Island  has  produced  was  Tristram 
Burgess,  who  administered  to  that  dried-up  bundle  of  malignity,  John  Ran 
dolph,  a  rebuke  so  scathing  that  the  Virginian  was  for  the  time  completely 
silenced.  Having  roused  the  Rhode  Islander  by  Ids  Satanic  sneering  at 
Northern  character  and  thrift,  his  merciless  criticism,  and  incomparably  bit 
ter  sarcasm,  Burgess  dealt  him  this  sentence  on  the  floor  of  Congress  :  "  Moral 
monsters  can  not  propagate ;  we  rejoice  that  the  father  of  lies  can  never  be 
come  the  father  of  liars." 

It  was  at  first  intended  to  place  the  State-house  with  its  front  toward 
what  was  then  known  as  "  the  swamp,"  in  the  direction  of  Farewell  Street. 
In  1743  it  was  completed.  Rhode  Isl 
and  may  with  advantage  follow  the 
lead  of  Connecticut  in  abolishing  one 
of  its  seats  of  government.  At  present 
its  constitution  provides  that  the  As 
sembly  shall  meet  and  organize  at  New 
port,  and  hold  an  adjourned  session  at 
Providence.1 

Walking  onward  and  upward  in 
Touro  Street,  the  visitor  sees  at  its 
junction  with  Kay  Street  what  he 
might  easily  mistake  for  a  pretty  and 
and  well -tended  garden,  but  for  the 
mortuary  emblems  sculptured  on  the 
gate-way.  The  chaste  and  beautiful 
design  of  this  portal,  even  to  the  inverted  flambeaux,  is  a  counterpart  of  that 
of  the  Old  Granary  ground  at  Boston.  This  is  the  Jewish  Cemetery. 

"  Ho\v  strange  it  seems!     These  Hebrews  in  their  graves, 

Close  by  the  street  of  this  fair  sea-port  town. 
Silent  beside  the  never-silent  waves, 

At  rest  in  all  this  moving  up  and  down! 

"And  these  sepulchral  stones,  so  old  and  brown, 
That  pave  with  level  flags  their  burial-place, 
Seem  like  the  tablets  of  the  Law,  thrown  down 
And  broken  bv  Moses  at  the  mountain's  base." 


JEWISH   CEMETERY. 


1  One  of  the  most  curious  chapters  of  Rhode  Island's  political  history  was  the 
ion"  of  1842,  growing  out  of  a  partial  and  limited  franchise  under  the  old  charter. 


Dorr  Rebell- 


366 


THE  NEW  ENGLAND  COAST. 


Close  at  hand  is  the   synagogue,  in  which  services  are  no  longer  held, 
though,  like  the  cemetery,  it  is  scrupulously  cared  for.1     The  silence  and 

mystery  which  brood  over  each  are 
deepened  by  this  reverent  guardian 
ship  of  unseen  hands.  In  1762  the 
synagogue  was  dedicated  with  the  so 
lemnities  of  Jewish  religious  usage. 
It  was  then  distinguished  as  the  best 
building  of  its  kind  in  the  country. 
The  interior  was  rich  and  elegant. 
Over  the  reading-desk  hung  a  large 
brass  chandelier;  in  the  centre,  and  at 
proper  distances  around  it,  four  others. 
On  the  front  of  the  desk  stood  a  pair  of 
highly  ornamented  brass  candlesticks, 
and  at  the  entrance  on  the  east  side 
were  four  others  of  the  same  size  and 
workmanship.  As  usual,  there  was  for 
the  women  a  gallery,  screened  with 
carved  net-work,  resting  on  columns. 
Over  this  gallery  another  rank  of  col 
umns  supported  the  roof.  It  was  the 
commonly  received  opinion  that  the 
lamp  hanging  above  the  altar  was 


JEWS'    SYNAGOGUE,  NEWPORT. 


never  extinguished. 

The  Hebrews  began  to  settle  on  the  island  before  1677.  The  deed  of  their 
ancient  burial-place  is  dated  in  this  year.  They  first  worshiped  in  a  private 
house.  Accessions  came  to  them  from  Spain,  from  Portugal,  and  from  Hol 
land,  with  such  names  as  Lopez,  Riveriera,  Seixas,  and  Touro,  until  the  con 
gregation  numbered  as  many  as  three  hundred  families.  The  stranger  be 
comes  familiar  with  the  name  of  Touro,  which  at  first  he  would  have  Truro, 
from  the  street  and  park,  no  less  than  the  respect  with  which  it  is  pronounced 
by  all  old  residents.  The  Hebrews  of  old  Newport  seem  to  have  fulfilled  the 
destiny  of  their  race,  becoming  scattered,  and  finally  extinct.  Moses  Lopez 
is  said  to  have  been  the  last  resident  Jew,  though,  unless  I  mistake,  the  He 
brew  physiognomy  met  me  more  than  once  in  Newport.  This  fraction 
formed  one  of  the  curious  constituents  of  Newport  society.  Its  history  is 
ended,  and  "Finis"  might  be  written  above  the  entrances  of  synagogue  and 
cemetery. 

Lord  Chesterfield  once  told  Lady  Shirley,  in  a  serious  conversation  on  the 
evidences  of  Christianity,  that  there  was  one  which  he  thought  to  be  invin- 


1  A  fund  bequeathed  by  Abraham  Touro,  who  died  in  Boston  in  1822,  secures  this  object. 


NEWPORT  OF  AQUIDNECK. 


367 


cible,  namely,  the  present  state  of  the  Jews — a  fact  to  be  accounted  for  on  no 
human  principle.  The  Hebrew  customs  have  remained  inviolate  amidst  all 
the  strange  mutations  which  time  has 
brought.  The  Sabbath  by  which  Shy- 
lock  registered  his  wicked  oath  is  still 
the  Christian's  Saturday.  In  the  Jew 
ish  burial  rite  the  grave  was  filled  in 
by  the  nearest  of  kin. 

In  no  other  cemetery  in  New  En 
gland  have  I  been  so  impressed  with 
the  sanctity,  the  inviolability  of  the 
last  resting-place  of  the  dead,  as  here 
among  the  graves  of  a  despised  people. 
The  idea  of  eternal  rest  seemed  really 
present.  Not  long  since  I  heard  the 
people  of  a  thriving  suburb  discussing 
the  removal  of  their  old  burial-place, 
bodily — I  mean  no  play  upon  the  word 
— to  the  skirts  of  the  town.  Being 
done,  it  was  thought  the  land  would 
pay  for  the  removal,  and  prove  a  prof 
itable  speculation.  Since  Abraham 
gave  four  hundred  shekels  of  silver  for 
the  field  of  Ephron,  the  Israelites  have 
reverenced  the  sepulchres  wherein  they 
bury  their  dead.  Here  is  religion  without  ostentation, 
leums  is  plenty  of  ostentation,  but  little  religion. 

The  visitor  here  may  note  another  distinctive  custom  of  this  ancient  peo 
ple.  The  inscription  above  the  gate  reads,  "  Erected  5603,  from  a  bequest 
made  by  Abraham  Touro."1  They  compute  the  passage  of  time  from  the 
creation. 

An  hour,  or  many  hours,  may  be  well  spent  in  the  Redwood  Library,  found 
ed  by  Abraham  Redwood,2  one  of  the  Quaker  magnates  of  old  Newport. 


JUDAH   TOURO. 


In  our  great  mauso- 


1  Judah  Touro,  the  philanthropist,  was  born  here  in  Newport,  in  1775,  the  year  of  American 
revolt.  His  father,  the  old  rabbi,  Isaac,  came  from  Holland,  officiating  as  preacher  in  1762  in 
Newport.  When  still  a  young  man,  Judah  Touro  removed  to  New  Orleans,  where  he  acquired  a 
fortune.  He  wa"s  a  volunteer  in  the  battle  of  1815,  and  was  wounded  by  a  cannon-ball  in  the  hip. 
Though  a  -Jew,  Judah  Touro  was  above  sect,  generously  contributing  to  Christian  church  enter 
prises.  Bunker  Hill  Monument,  toward  which  he  gave  ten  thousand  dollars,  is  a  memorial  of  his 
patriotic  liberality. 

a  It  was  incorporated  1747:  the  same  year  Mr.  Redwood  gave  five  hundred  pounds  sterling,  in 
books,  or  about  thirteen  hundred  volumes.  The  lot  was  the  gift  of  Henry  Collins,  in  1748  ;  build 
ing  erected  1748-'50j  enlarged  in  1758;  and  now  (1875)  a  new  building  is  erecting.  Abraham 


368 


THE  NEW  ENGLAND  COAST. 


His  fine  and  kindly  face  has  been  carefully  reproduced  in  the  engraving.  The 
library  building  is  in  the  pure  yet  severe  style  of  a  Greek  temple.  The 
painter  Stuart  considered  it  classical  and  refined.  It  has  a  cool  and  secluded 
look,  standing  back  from  the  street  and  shaded  by  trees,  that  is  inviting  to 

the  appreciative 
visitor.  This  is 
one  of  the  insti 
tutions  of  New 
port  which  all 
may  praise  with 
out  stint.  It  has 
grown  with  its 
growth ;  yet,  after 
repeated  enlarge 
ments,  the  in 
creased  collections 
in  art  and  litera 
ture  of  this  store 
house  of  thought 
have  demanded 
greater  space. 

Another  bene 
factor  worthy  to 
be  ranked  with 
Abraham  Red 
wood  was  Charles  Bird  King,  whose  portrait  is  hanging  in  the  hall.  At  his 
death  he  made  a  munificent  bequest  of  real  estate,  yielding  nine  thousand 
dollars,  his  valuable  library,  engravings,  and  more  than  two  hundred  of  the 
paintings  which  now  adorn  the  walls. 

Among  other  portraits  here  are  those  of  Bishop  Berkeley  in  canonicals, 
and  of  Governor  Joseph  Wanton,  in  scarlet  coat  and  periwig,  his  face  looking 
as  if  he  and  good  living  were  no  strangers  to  each  other;  of  William  Cod- 
dington,  and  of  a  long  catalogue  of  soldiers  and  statesmen,  many  being  copies 
by  Mr.  King.  The  library  suffered  from  pilfering  during  the  British  occupa 
tion :  it  now  numbers  something  in  excess  of  twenty  thousand  volumes.1 

I  admit  the  first  object  in  Newport  I  went  to  see  was  the  Old  Stone  Mill. 
I  went  directly  to  it,  and  should  not  venture  to  conduct  the  reader  by  any 
route  that  did  not  lead  to  it.  I  returned  often,  and  could  only  wonder  at 


THE   REDWOOD   LIBRARY. 


Kedwood  was  a  native  of  Antigua.  When  the  library  sent  its  committee  to  Stuart,  with  a  com 
mission  to  paint  a  full-length  portrait  of  Mr.  Redwood,  Stuart  refused,  for  reasons  of  his  own,  to 
execute  it. 

1  Dr.  Ezra  Stiles  was  librarian  for  twenty  vears. 


NEWPORT  OF  AQUIDNECK. 


369 


the  seeming  indifference   of  people   constantly  passing,  but  never  looking 
at  it. 

The  Old  Stone  Mill  stands  within  the  pleasant  inclosure  of  Touro  Park,  a 
place  as  fitting  as  any  in  Newport  for  the  beginning  of  a  sentimental  jour 
ney.  It  is  a  pretty  sight  on  a  summer's  evening,  this  green  spot,  dotted  with 
moving  figures  sauntering  up  and  down  under  the  grim  shadow  of  this  pic 
turesque  ruin.1  By  moonlight  it  is  superb. 

No  structure  in  America  is  probably  so  familiar  to  the  great  mass  of  the 
people  as  this  ruined  mill.  The  frequency  of  pictorial  representation  has 
fixed  its  general  form  and  character  until  there  is  probably  not  a  school-boy 
in  his  teens  who  would  not  be  able  to 
make  a  rude  sketch  of  it  on  the  black 
board.  For  years  it  has  been  the 
toughest  historical  pitice  de  resistance 
our  antiquaries  have  had  to  deal  with, 
and  by  many  it  was  supposed  to  em 
body  a  secret  as  impenetrable  as  that 
of  Stonehenge. 

The  Old  Mill  was  dozing  quietly 
away  on  this  hill,  when,  in  1836,  the  So 
ciety  of  Northern  Antiquaries,  of  Co 
penhagen,  declared  it  to  be  evidence  of 
the  discovery  and  occupation  of  New 
port  by  Northmen,  in  the  eleventh  cen 
tury.  An  historical  chain  was  imme 
diately  sought  to  be  established  be 
tween  Dighton  Rock,  an  exhumed  skel 
eton  at  Fall  River,  and  this  tower,  of 
which  the  inscription  at  Monhegan  Isl 
and  was  believed  to  be  another  link. 

Common  opinion,  prior  to  the  dec 
laration  of  the  Danish  antiquaries,  was 
that  the  tower  was  the  remains  of  a  windmill,  and  nothing  more.  In  a  gaz 
etteer  of  Rhode  Island,  printed  in  1819,  is  the  following  paragraph:  "In  this 
town  (Newport)  there  is  now  standing  an  ancient  stone  mill,  the  erection  of 
which  is  beyond  the  date  of  its  earliest  records;  but  it  is  supposed  to  have 
been  erected  by  the  first  settlers,  about  one  hundred  and  eighty  years  ago. 
It  is  an  interesting  monument  of  antiquity." 

1  The  discovery  of  any  portion  of  the  coast  of  New  England  by  Northmen  belongs  to  the  realms' 
of  conjectnre.  It  is  not  unreasonable  to  suppose  that  they  may  have  fallen  in  with  the  continent ; 
but  what  should  have  brought  them  so  far  south  as  Rhode  Island,  when  Nova  Scotia  must  have  ap 
peared  to  their  eyes  a  paradise  ?  The  vine  grows  there.  Champlain  called  Richmond's  Island  Isle 
de  Bacchus,  on  account  of  its  grapes. 

24 


ABRAHAM   KEDWOOD. 


370 


THE  NEW  ENGLAND  COAST. 


About  this  time  Timothy  Dwight,  formerly  president  of  Yale,  was  in 
Newport.     In  his  letters,  published  in  1822,  he  has  something  to  say  of  the 

Old  Stone  Mill: 
"On  a  skirt  of 
this  town  is  the 
foundation  of  a 
windmill  erected 
some  time  in  the 
seventeenth  cen 
tury.  The  ce 
ment  of  this 
work,  formed  of 
shell -lime  and 
beach  gravel,  has 
all  the  firmness 
of  Roman  mortar, 
and  when  bro 
ken  off  frequent 
ly  brings  with  it 
part  of  the  stone. 
Time  has  made  no 
impression  on  it, 
except  to  increase 
its  firmness.  It 
would  be  an  im 
provement  in  the 
art  of  building  in 
this  country,  if 
mortar  made  in 
the  same  manner 
were  to  be  gener 
ally  employed."1 

All  readers  of  early  New  England  history  know  that  nothing  was  too 
trivial,  in  the  opinion  of  those  old  chroniclers,  to  be  recorded.  Winthrop 
mentions  the  digging-up  of  a  French  coin  at  Dorchester  in  1643.  It  is  per 
tinent  to  inquire  why  Roger  Williams,  Hubbard,  Mather,  the  antiquary,  and 
correspondent  of  the  Royal  Society,  Prince,  Hutchinson,  and  others,  have 
wholly  ignored  the  presence  of  an  old  ruin  antedating  the  English  occupation 
^of  Rhode  Island  ?  Would  not  Canonicus  have  led  the  white  men  to  the  spot, 
and  there  recounted  the  traditions  of  his  people  ?  No  spot  of  ground  in  New 
England  has  had  more  learned  and  observing  annalists.  Where  were  Bishop 


TUB   OLD   STONE   MILL. 


1  "Travels  in  New  England  and  New  York:"  New  Haven,  1822,  vol.  iii.,  p.  56. 


NEWPORT  OF  AQUIDNECK. 


371 


Berkeley,  Rochambeau,  Chastellux,  Lauzun,  Abbe  Robin,  Segur,  Dumas,  and 
Deux  -  Fonts,  that  they  make  no  mention,  in  their  writings  or  memoirs,  of 
the  remarkable  archaeological  remains  at  Newport  ?    Yet,  on  the  report  of 
the  Danish  Society,  nearly  or  quite  all  our  American  historians  have  admitted 
their  theory  of  the  origin  of  the  Old  Stone  Mill  to  their  pages.     With  this 
leading,  and  the   ready  credence   the 
marvelous  always  obtains,  the  public 
rested  satisfied.1 

The  windmill  was  an  object  of  the 
first  necessity  to  the  settlers.  More  of 
them  may  be  seen  on  Rhode  Island  to 
day  than  in  all  the  rest  of  New  En 
gland.  That  this  mill  should  have  been 
built  of  stone  is  in  no  way  surprising, 
considering  that  the  surface  of  the 
ground  must  have  been  bestrewed  with 
stones  of  proper  size  and  shape  ready 
to  the  builders'  hands.8  I  saw  these 
flat  stones  of  which  the  tower  is  built 
turned  up  by  the  plowshare  in  the 
roads.  Throughout  the  island  the  walls 
are  composed  of  them.3 

The  cut  on  the  preceding  page  rep 
resents  the  Old  Stone  Mill,  with  the 
moon's  radiance  illuminating  its  arches. 
It  is  a  cylindrical  tower,  resting  on  eight 
rude  columns,  also  circular.  The  arches  have  no  proper  key-stone,4  and  two 
of  them  appear  broader  than  the  others,  as  if  designed  for  the  entrance  of 
some  kind  of  vehicle.  One  column  is  so  placed  as  to  show  an  inner  projec 
tion,  an  evident  fault  of  workmanship.  Two  stages  are  also  apparent,  and 

1  Among  the  records  of  Newport  was  found  one  of  1740,  in  which  Edward  Pelham  bequeathed 
to  his  daughter  eight  acres  of  land,  "with  an  Old  Stone  Wind  Mill  thereon  standing  and  being, 
and  commonly  called  and  known  as  the  Mill  Field."  The  lane  now  called  Mill  Street  appears  to 
have  been  so  named  from  its  conducting  up  the  hill  to  the  mill.  The  wife  of  Pelham  was  grand 
daughter  of  Governor  Benedict  Arnold.  In  the  governor's  will,  dated  in  1677,  he  gives  direction 
for  his  burial  in  a  piece  of  ground  "being  and  lying  in  my  land  in  or  near  ye  line  or  path  from  my 
dwelling-house,  leading  to  my  stone-built  Wind  Mill  in  ye  town  of  Newport  above  mentioned." 

2 1  incline  to  the  opinion  that  the  Indians  had  here,  as  at  Plymouth,  cleared  a  considerable  area. 
There  the  carpenters  had  to  go  an  eighth  of  a  mile  for  timber  suitable  for  building. 

3  Within  five  miles  of  Boston  is  standing  an  ancient  stone  windmill,  erected  about  1710.  It 
had  been  so  long  used  as  a  powder-magazine  that  no  tradition  remained  in  the  neighborhood  that 
it  had  ever  been  a  windmill.  They  still  call  it  the  Old  Powder-house. 

*  The  keys  are  compound,  and,  though  rude,  are  tolerably  defined.  No  two  are  alike ;  they  are 
generally  of  a  hard  gray  stone,  instead  of  the  slate  used  in  the  structure. 


THE   PERRY   MONUMENT. 


372  THE  NEW  ENGLAND  COAST. 

there  are  two  windows  and  a  fire-place.  On  the  inside  the  haunches  are 
cut  to  receive  the  timbers  of  the  first-floor,  just  at  the  turn  of  the  arch. 
Some  cement  is  still  seen  adhering  to  the  interior  walls.  The  whole  tower  I 
estimated  to  be  twenty-five  feet  high,  with  an  inside  diameter  of  twenty  feet. 
This  was  probably  nearly  or  quite  its  original  height.  For  the  rude  mate 
rials,  it  is  a  remarkable  specimen  of  masonry.1 

I  could  see  that  even  some  of  the  best-informed  Newporters  with  whom  I 
talked  were  reluctant  to  let  go  the  traditional  antiquity  of  their  Old  Stone 
Mill.  It  is  more  interesting  when  tinged  with  the  romance  of  Norse  vikings 
than  as  the  prosaic  handiwork  of  English  colonists,  who  had  corn  to  grind, 
though  American  antiquaries  have  ceased  to  attribute  to  it  any  other  origin. 
I  confess  to  a  feeling  of  remorse  in  aiding  to  destroy  the  illusion  which  has  so 
long  made  the  Old  Mill  a  tower  of  strength  to  Newport.  Its  beauty,  when 
seen  draped  in  ivy  and  woodbine,  clustering  so  thickly  as  to  screen  its  gray 
walls  from  view,  is  at  least  not  apocryphal. 

1  This  building  may  ha*'e  been  mentioned  by  Church  in  his  account  of  Philip's  War,  when,  after 
some  display  of  aversion  on  the  part  of  a  certain  captain  to  a  dangerous  enterprise,  he  was  advised 
by  the  Indian  fighter  to  lead  his  men  "  to  the  windmill  on  Khode  Island,  where  they  would  be  out 
of  danger." 


BOAT   LANDING. 


CHAPTER  XXIIL 

PICTURESQUE     NEWPORT. 

"Don't  you  see  the  silvery  wave? 
Don't  you  hear  the  voice  of  God  ?" 

KIRKE  WHITE. 

is  a  walk  of  singular  beauty  along  the  sea-bluffs  that  terminate 
the  reverse  of  the  hills  on  which  Newport  is  built.  It  is  known  as  the 
Cliff  Walk.  Every  body  walks  there.  A  broken  wall  of  rock  overhanging  or 
retreating  from  its  base,  but  always  rising  high  above  the  water,  is  bor 
dered  by  a  foot-path  with  pleasant  windings  and  elastic  turf.  The  face  of  the 
cliff  is  studded  with  stony  pimples;  its  formation  being  the  conglomerate,  or 
pudding-stone,  intermingled  with  schists.  Color  excepted,  these  rocks  really 
look  like  the  artificial  cement  used  in  laying  the  foundations  of  ponderous 
structures.  They  appear  to  resist  the  action  of  the  sea  with  less  power  than 
the  granite  of  the  north  coast.  Masses  of  fallen  rock  are  grouped  along  the 
beach  underneath  the  cliff,  around  which  the  rising  waves  seethe  and  foam 
and  hiss. 

A  persistent  pedestrian,  having  reached  the  shore  at  Easton's  Beach,  may 
pass  around  the  southern  limb  of  the  island  to  Fort  Adams.  He  may  then 
make  his  way  back  to  town  by  the  Fort  Road,  or  take  the  little  ferry-boat 
plying  between  Newport  and  Jamestown,  on  Canonicut.  This  ramble  has 
been  much,  yet  not  undeservingly,  praised. 


S74  THE  NEW  ENGLAND  COAST. 

My  first  walk  here  was  on  one  of  those  rare  October  days  that  are  to  the 
New  England  climate  what  the  bloom  is  to  the  peach.  The  air,  after  the  sun 
had  swept  aside  the  vapors  arising  from  the  ocean,  was  intoxicating ;  it  was 
so  light  and  crystal,  it  seemed  as  if  it  might  put  new  life  into  the  most  con 
firmed  valetudinarian.  On  one  side  the  sea  glittered  like  silvery  scales  on 
fine  armor.  The  intruding  promontories  of  Sachuest  and  Seconnet  bathed 
their  feet  in  tranquil  waves  ;  and  as  the  eye  roved  along  the  horizon  it  lodged 
an  instant  on  the  island  known  as  Cormorant  Rock,  betrayed  by  the  whiten 
ing  foam  around  it.  In  the  farthest  sea-board  a  dark  cloud  of  brooding  vapor 
prolonged  the  land  in  seeming,  and  veiled  the  approach  of  ships. 


THE   BEACH. 


Along  the  verge  of  the  cliff  where  I  walked  the  dash  of  the  surf  frequent 
ly  tossed  a  shower  of  fine  spray  as  high  as  the  shelf  itself,  drenching  the  grass, 
and  immeshing  for  an  instant  among  its  myriad  drops  the  fleeting  hues  of  the 
rainbow.  The  rocks  had  a  prevailing  purple  mass  of  color,  fringed  at  the 
edge  with  green  grass,  that  sometimes  crept  down  the  face  of  the  cliff  and 
toyed  with  its  wrinkles. 

These  rocks,  constantly  varnished  by  sea -spray,  sparkle  with  glancing 
lights  that  relieve  the  hardness  of  their  angular  lineaments.  As  you  walk 
on,  they  are  always  presenting  new  profiles  of  grotesque  resemblances.  Yet 
not  a  sphinx  of  them  all  would  tell  how  long  the  sea  had  been  battering  at 
their  rugged  features,  or  of  the  fire  that  had  baked  their  tooth-defying  pud 
ding — Old  Ocean's  daily  repast.  Now  and  then,  when  standing  on  the  brink 
of  some  table-rock,  the  plunge  of  a  billow  underneath  caused  a  sensible  tre 
mor.  At  various  points  the  descent  of  the  cliffs  is  facilitated  by  steps,  and  at 
proper  stages  of  the  tide  the  outlying  rocks  are  the  favorite  resort  of  anglers 
for  tautog,  bass,  and  perch.  The  Forty  Steps  are  of  note  as  conducting  to 
Conrad's  Cave,  a  favorite  haunt  of  lovers  who  have  heart  secrets  they  may  no 


PICTURESQUE  NEWPORT.  375 

longer  keep.  The  ways  of  such  people 
are  past  finding  out.  At  Niagara  vows 
are  whispered  at  the  brink  of  the  cat 
aract.  Perchance  there  is  a  savor  of 
romance  about  these  old  sea  caverns 
which  plain  matter-of-fact  folk  may 
not  fathom. 

Turning   away   from   the   sea,  the 
rambler  perceives  the  long  line  of  cot 
tages,  villas,  and  country  houses,  Swiss, 
Italian,English,or  nondescript, to  which 
these  territories  pertain.1    These  houses 
represent  the  best  and  at  the  same  time 
the  most  rational  feature  of  a  semi-res 
idence  at  the  sea-side.     People  are  real 
ly  at  home,  and  may  enjoy  the  natural 
beauties  of  their  situation  without  the 
disadvantages   inseparable  from  hotel 
life.    To  be  sure,  at  Newport  it  is  only 
Murray  Hill  or  Beacon  Hill  transplant 
ed.     The  social  system  revolves  with 
much  the  same  regularity  as  the  plan 
etary,  and   with  no  abatement  of  its 
exclusive  privileges.     But  home  life  or 
cottage  life  at  the  sea-side  is  within 
the  means  of  all  those  possessing  mod 
erate  incomes,  who  are  content  to  dis 
pense  with  luxury  or  more  house-room  than  they 
know  what  to  do  with ;   and  it  is  remarkable  how 
little  may  serve  one's  turn  where  outdoor  life  is  the 
desideratum.     Those  who  are  content  to  leave  all  the 
surplusage  at  home,  whether  of  frivolity  or  luggage, 
and  honestly  mean  to  enjoy  the  shore  for  itself,  come 
where  they  may  forget  the  world,  the  flesh,  and  money-get* 
ting.     To  this  sort  of  life — a  hint  borrowed  of  English  sea 
side  customs — Newport  has  led  the  way.     At  Oak  Bluffs  a 
city  has  sprung  into  existence  on  this  plan,  and  the  shores 
of  New  England  are  dotted  with  little  red-roofed  cottages. 
If  he  has  come  to  the  cliffs  by  the  Bath  road,  the  visitor 
sees,  almost  at  the  beginning  of  his  ramble,  the  summer  cot 
tage  of  Charlotte  Cushman,  whose  career  has  some  resem-         CLIFF  WALK. 
blance  to  that  of  the  gifted  Mrs.  Siddons.     Both  were  poor 

1  Many  of  these  so-called  cottages  cost  from  $50,000  to  $200,000.     For  the  season,  $2000  is 
considered  a  moderate  rental,  and  $5000  is  frequently  paid. 


376 


THE  NEW  ENGLAND   COAST. 


girls  at  the  outset  of  their  professional  lives.  The  Englishwoman,  even  after 
she  became  famous,  usually  refused  invitations  to  the  houses  of  the  great  or 
opulent,  excusing  herself  from  accepting  them  on  the  ground  that  all  her 
time  was  due  to  the  public,  whose  continued  favor  she  wished  to  merit  by 
unremitting  application  to  her  studies. 

Whatever  money  or  taste  or  art  has  been  able  to  do  toward  the  em 
bellishment  of  the 
grounds  along  the 
cliffs — and  in  this 
category  are  in 
cluded  Bellevue 
and  other  favor 
ed  avenues — has 
not  been  omitted. 
A  horticulturist 
would  see  some 
thing  to  notice 
everywhere.  As 
the  houses  stand 
well  back  from 
the  shore,  the 
space  between  is 
laid  out  in  bright- 
hued  parterres, 
that  look  like 
Persian  carpets 
spread  on  the 
well-kept  lawns. 
The  eye  at  times 
fairly  revels  in 
sumptuous  mass 
es  of  color.  Yet 
Newport  was 
now  deserted  by 
the  fashionable 

world,  in  the  month  of  months,  when  sea  and  shore  are  incomparably  en 
ticing  and  satisfying. 

In  the  angle  formed  by  the  meeting  of  Ocean  and  Carroll  avenues  is  Lily 
Pond,  where  knights  of  the  rod  love  to  loiter  and  cast  a  line.  If  still  pur 
suing  the  cliffs,  you  pass  by  Gooseberry  Island,  whither  the  old-time  mag 
nates  were  wont  to  wend  for  fishing,  bathing,  and  drinking-bouts.  Spouting 
Rock,  where,  in  gales,  inrolling  seas  are  forced  high  in  air,  lies  this  way.  Bass 
Rock,  of  piscatory  renown,  and  Brenton's  Reef,  the  place  of  wrecks,  show  their 


t 
' 


THE   CLIFFS. 


PICTURESQUE  NEWPORT. 


377 


A  NEWPORT   COTTAGE. 


jagged  sides.  Point  Judith  and  Block  Island  are  visible  from  Castle  Hill, 
where  in  former  times  a  watch-tower  stood.  No  other  day  of  the  seven  in 
Newport  is  quite 
equal  to  Fort 
Day.  Then  the 
very  long  line  of 
equipages  directs 
itself  upon  the 
point  where  Fort 
Adams  is  located. 
On  this  gala-day 
the  commandant 
keeps  open  house, 
with  colors  fly 
ing,  music  play 
ing,  and  gates 
opened  wide. 
The  procession 
winds  around 
the  parade,  a  very 
moving  picture 

of  peace  in  the  lap  of  war.  Gay  scarfs  instead  of  battle-flags  wave,  jewels 
instead  of  steel,  and  dog-carts  instead  of  ammunition-carts  flash  and  rumble. 
The  crash,  glitter,  and  animation  are  reminders  of  Hyde  Park  Corner  or  the 
Bois  de  Boulogne.  The  soldiers  I  saw  were  much  improved  in  appearance 

since  the  war,  and  now  seemed 
really  proud  of  the  dress  they 
wore.  They  paced  the  jetty 
and  rampart  in  jaunty  shakos, 
white  gloves,  and  well-fitting 
uniforms,  as  men  not  ashamed 
of  themselves,  and  of  whom  Un 
cle  Sam  need  not  be  ashamed. 
Fort  Adams  was  begun  in 
the  administration  of  the  pres 
ident  whose  name  it  bears. 
The  father  of  the  American 
navy  intended  Newport  as  a 
station  for  her  squadrons  of 
the  future.  To  this  end  for 
tifications  were  begun,  designed  to  guarantee  the  approaches  to  the  harbor. 
At  this  time  we  were  dreading  our  late  ally,  France,  more  than  any  other 
European  power.  Fortifying  Newport  against  France  now  seems  incredible, 


CHARLOTTE   CUSHMAN'S  RESIDENCE. 


378 


THE  NEW  ENGLAND  COAST. 


yet  the  Directory,  with  citizen  Talleyrand  at  the  helm,  would  either  mould 
American  politics  to  its  will  or  trample  the  ancient  amity  in  the  dust.  In 
1798,  a  French  cruiser,  after  the  capture  of  several  American  vessels,  had  the 
impudence  to  bring  her  prize  into  one  of  our  own  ports  to  escape  the  more 
dreaded  English.1  Mr.  Adams  brought  citizen  Talleyrand  and  the  Directoire 
Executif  to  their  senses  ;2  but  Mr.  Jefferson,  who  decidedly  leaned  to  the 
French  side  of  European  politics,  stopped  the  work  begun  by  his  predecessor. 

In  1800,  Mr.  Humphreys,  the 
naval  constructer,  was  sent 
to  examine  the  NewEngland 
ports  with  regard  to  their 
eligibility  as  great  national 
dock -yards.  He  reported 
that  Newport  possessed  by 
far  the  most  suitable  harbor 
for  such  an  establishment. 

Fort  Adams  was  chief 
ly  constructed  under  the 
watchful  supervision  of  the 
accomplished  engineer,  Gen 
eral  J.  G.  Totten.  It  is  said 
that  during  the  progress  of 
the  work  a  full  set  of  plans 
of  the  fortress  mysteriously 
disappeared,  and  as  mysteriously  re-appeared  after  a  long  interval.  It  is  be 
lieved  in  certain  quarters  that  copies  of  these  drawings  might  be  found  in  the 
topographical  bureau  of  the  British  War  Office. 

Before  setting  out  for  the  campaign  of  1812,  the  Emperor  Napoleon,  as 
Bourrienne  relates,  wished  to  have  exact  information  respecting  Ragusa  and 
Illyria.  He  sent  for  Marmont,  whose  answers  were  not  satisfactory.  He  then 
interrogated  different  generals  to  as  little  purpose.  Dejean,  inspector  of  en 
gineers,  was  then  summoned.  "Have  you,"  demanded  the  emperor,  "among 
your  officers  any  one  who  is  acquainted  with  Ragusa  ?" 

Dejean,  after  a  moment's  reflection,  answered,  "Sire,  there  is  a  chief  of 
battalion  who  has  been  a  long  time  forgotten,  who  is  well  acquainted  with 
Ragusa." 

"What  do  you  call  him?" 

"Bernard." 

"Ah,  stop  a  little;  Bernard— I  recollect  that  name.     Where  is  he?" 


SPOUTING  ROCK. 


1  "R.  Goodloe  Harper's  Speeches,  p.  275." 

a  By  smashing  their  frigates,  L'Insurgente,  La  Vengeance,  Berceau,  and  making  it  generally 
unpleasant  for  them. 


PICTURESQUE  NEWPORT.  379 

"  Sire,  he  is  at  Antwerp,  employed  upon  the  fortifications." 

"  Send  notice  by  the  telegraph  that  he  instantly  mount  his  horse  and  re 
pair  to  Paris." 

The  promptitude  with  which  the  emperor's  orders  were  always  executed 
is  well  known.  A  few  days  afterward  Bernard  was  in  Paris  at  the  house  of 
General  Dejean,  and  shortly  after  in  the  cabinet  of  the  emperor.  He  was 
graciously  received,  and  Napoleon  immediately  said, "  Tell  me  about  Ragusa." 

When  Bernard  had  done  speaking,  the  emperor  said,  "  Colonel  Bernard,  I 
now  know  Ragusa."  He  then  conversed  familiarly  with  him,  and  having  a 
plan  of  the  works  at  Antwerp  before  him,  showed  how  he  would  successfully 
besiege  the  place.  The  newly  made  colonel  explained  so  well  how  he  would 
defend  himself  against  the  emperor's  attacks  that  Napoleon  was  delighted, 
and  immediately  bestowed  upon  him  a  mark  of  distinction  which,  says  Bour- 
rienne,  "  he  never,  to  my  knowledge,  granted  but  upon  this  one  occasion." 
As  he  was  going  to  preside  at  the  council  he  desired  Colonel  Bernard  to  ac 
company  him,  and  several  times  during  the  sitting  requested  his  opinion  upon 
the  points  under  discussion.  On  the  breaking -up  of  the  council,  Napoleon 
said  to  him, "  You  are  my  aid-de-camp." 

Bourrienne  continues:  "At  the  end  of  the  campaign  he  was  made  general 
of  brigade ;  shortly  after,  general  of  division  ;  and  he  is  now  known  through 
out  Europe  as  the  first  officer  of  engineers  in  existence.  A  piece  of  folly  of 
Clarke's1  has  deprived  France  of  the  services  of  this  distinguished  man,  who, 
after  refusing  most  brilliant  offers  made  to  him  by  different  sovereigns  of 
Europe,  has  retired  to  the  United  States  of  America,  where  he  commands  the 
engineers,  and  where  he  has  constructed  on  the  side  of  the  Floridas  fortifica- 

& 

tions  which  are  by  engineers  declared  to  be  masterpieces  of  military  skill."2 

Bernard  came  to  the  United  States  in  1816,  and  was  associated  with  the 
late  General  Totten  in  carrying  out  the  now  discarded  system  of  sea-coast 
fortifications.  It  is  said  that  Colonel  M'Cree,  then  chief  of  engineers,  resigned 
rather  than  serve  under  him.  Accord  between  the  French  engineer  and 
Colonel  Totten  was  only  secured  by  a  division  of  the  works,  and  agreement 
to  accept,  on  the  part  of  each,  the  other's  plans.  Bernard  wished  to  construct 
one  great  fortress,  like  Antwerp  or  the  once  famous  strongholds  of  the  Quad 
rilateral.  Fortress  Monroe  is  the  result  of  this  idea.  He  also  planned  the 
defenses  of  Mobile.3 

From  Fort  Adams  it  is  a  short  sail  across  to  the  Dumplings,  and  the  cir 
cular  tower  of  stone,  built  also  in  the  administration  of  John  Adams.  This 
work,  now  in  ruins,  is  second  only  in  picturesqueness  to  the  Old  Stone  Mill, 


1  Duke  de  Feltre,  French  minister  of  war. 

2  He  afterward  returned  to  France,  and  was  made  minister  of  war. 

8  Fort  Morgan  was  constructed  by  him  with  twelve  posterns,  a  statement  significant  to  military 
engineers.     General  Totten  closed  six  of  them,  and  the  Confederates,  when  besieged,  all  but  two. 


380 


THE  NEW  ENGLAND  COAST. 


•**.• 


if  indeed  it  should  yield  the  first  place  to  that  singular  structure.     The  para 
pet  has  crumbled,  and  the  bomb-proofs  are  choked  with  rubbish.     It  is  about 

a  hundred  feet  from  the  crown  of 
the  parapet  to  the  water,  and,  though 
the  elevation  is  inconsiderable,  is  one 
of  the  choice  points  of  observation  in 
Narraganset  Bay.  The  neighboring 
rocks  are  of  good  report  among  fisher 
men,  and  the  tower  and  its  neighbor 
hood  are  places  much  affected  by  pic 
nic  parties.  Taken  altogether,  the  old 
fort  on  Canonicut,  with  its  swarthy 
rock  foundations,  is  one  of  the  last 
objects  to  fade  from  the  recollection. 
Seen  with  the  setting  sun  gilding  the 
broken  rampart  or  glancing  from  out 
its  blackened  embrasures,  it  embodies 
something  of  the  idea  of  an  antique 
castle  by  the  sea. 

Being  here  on  the  island  of  Canon 
icut,  the  visitor  will  find  it  pleasant  sauntering  along  the  shores,  or  across  a 
broad,  smooth  road  leading  to  the  farther  side  of  the  island  and  the  ferry  to 
the  opposite  main-land.  The  water  between  is  called  the  Western  Passage. 
When  I  saw  it,  not  fewer  than  a  hundred  vessels  were  lying  wind-bound, 
their  sails  spread  to  catch  the  first  puff  of  the  land-breeze.  Dutch  Island, 
with  its  light-house,  appears  in  full  view,  about  midway  of  the  passage.  The 
rock  formation  of  this  side  of  Canonicut  is  largely  slate,  with  abundant  in 
trusion  of  white  quartz.  Along  the  beach  the  slate  is  so  decomposed  as  to 
give  way  to  the  pressure  of  the  foot. 

Canonicut  is  a  beautiful  island,  with  graceful  slopes  and  fertile  soil.  It  is 
here,  on  the  northern  end,  a  cottage  city  is  designed  of  summer  houses,  access 
ible  to  people  who  do  not  keep  footmen  or  carriages,  or  give  champagne 
breakfasts.  Five  hundred  acres  have  been  laid  out  in  avenues,  parks,  and 
drives:  the  shores,  by  special  reservation,  are  to  remain  forever  open  for  the 
equal  enjoyment  of  all  who  resort  hither.1 

At  the  coining  of  D'Estaing  and  the  French  fleet,  Canonicut  was  garri 
soned  by  Brown's  provincial  corps,  and  two  regiments  of  Anspach,  who  were 
compelled  to  evacuate  it.  The  French  land  troops  then  took  possession  of 


THE  DUMPLINGS. 


1  Canonicut  is  about  seven  miles  long,  its  longest  axis  lying  almost  north  and  south.  It  in 
cludes  a  single  township,  incorporated  1678,  by  the  name  of  Jamestown.  The  island  was  pur 
chased  from  the  Indians  in  1657.  Prudence  Island,  six  miles  long,  is  also  attached  to  James 
town. 


PICTURESQUE  NEWPORT. 


381 


the  Dumpling  and  Beaver  Tail  batteries.1     In  the  year  1749  a  light-house 
was  erected  on  Beaver  Tail. 

Newport  has  not  treasured  the  memory  of  the  Hessians.  They  were 
never  in  favor,  being  about  equally 
feared  and  hated.  At  the  battle  of 
Long  Island  they  pinned  American 
soldiers  to  the  trees  with  their  bayo 
nets.  Loaded  down  with  arms  and 
accoutrements,  they  marched  and 
fought  with  equal  phlegm.  As  for 
agers  they  were  even  more  to  be 
dreaded  than  in  battle,  as  they  usually 
stripped  a  garden  or  a  house  of  its 
last  root  or  crust.  Brutalized  by  the 
removal  of  the  only  incentive  that  is 
honorable  in  the  soldier,  they  lived  or 
died  at  so  much  per  head. 

Newport  as  a  British  garrison  was 
the  resort  of  numbers  of  courtesans, 
many  of  whom  had  followed  the  army 
from  New  York.  Quarrels  between 
Hessian  and  British  officers,  growing 
out  of  their  amours,  were  frequent.  A 
Hessian  major  and  captain  at  last 
fought  a  duel  about  a  woman  of  the 
town,  in  which  glorious  cause  the  ma 
jor  was  run  through  the  body  and 
killed.  General  Prescott  then  ordered 
all  the  authors  of  these  troubles  to  be 
confined  in  Newport  jail. 

Driving  in  Newport  is  one  of  the 
duties  the  fashionable  world  owes  to  itself  and  to  society.  On  every  fine 
day  between  four  in  the  afternoon  and  dusk  Bellevue  Avenue  is  thronged 
with  equipages,  equestrians,  and  promenaders.  Nowhere  in  America  can  so 
many  elegant  turnouts  be  seen  as  here:  every  species  of  vehicle  known  to  the 
wheeled  vocabulary  is  in  requisition.  The  cortege  is  not,  as  might  be  sup 
posed,  a  racing  rnob,  but  a  decorous-paced,  well-reined  procession — a  sort  of 
reunion  upon  wheels  of  all  that  is  brilliant  and  fascinating  in  Newport  society. 
The  quiet  though  elegant  carriages  with  crests  on  them  are  Bostonian;  the 
most  "stylish"  horse-furniture  and  mettled  horses  are  at  home  in  Central 


HESSIAN   GRENADIER. 


1  At  this  time  four  British  frigates  and  several  smaller  craft  were  destroyed.     The  French 
forced  the  passage  on  the  west  of  Canonicut,  and  raised  the  blockade  of  Providence. 


382 


THE  NEW  ENGLAND  COAST. 


Park;  Philadelphia  is  self-contain 
ed,  and  of  substantial  elegance. 
Imagine  this  pageant  of  beautiful 
women  and  cultivated  men  pass 
ing  and  repassing,  mingling  and 
separating,  smiling,  saluting,  admir 
ing,  and  admired ;  the  steady  beat  of  hoofs  on  the  hard  gravel  and  continu 
ous  roll  of  wheels  proceeding  without  intermission,  until  the  whole  becomes 
bewildering,  confused,  and  indistinct,  as  if  the  whirl  of  wheels  were  indeed 
"  in  your  brain." 

When  "  The  Drive  "  is  spoken  of,  that  through  Bellevue  and  Ocean  avenues 
— with,  on  Fort  days  (Wednesdays  and  Fridays),  the  detour  to  the  fortress  and 
so  back  to  town — is  meant.  Another  charming  drive  is  by  the  Bath  road, 
then  skirting  the  beaches,  to  continue  on  through  Middletown,  where  the  hills 
are  still  blistered  with  the  remains  of  Revolutionary  intrenchrnents.  Paradise 
and  Purgatory  are  both  reached  by  this  road,  and  are  within  easy  distance  of 
any  part  of  Newport. 

On  two  occasions  when  I  crossed  the  beaches  the  sea  was  running  too 
heavily  to  make  bathing  practicable.  The  surf,  too,  was  much  discolored 
with  sea-wrack  and  the  nameless  rubbish  it  is  always  turning  over  and  over. 
Groups  of  bathing-houses  were  dispersed  along  the  upper  margin  of  the  strand. 


PICTURESQUE  NEWPORT. 


383 


THE  DRIVE. 

They  are  not  much  larger  than,  and  bear  a  strong  resemblance  to,  sentry- 
boxes.  When  feasible,  bathing  is  regulated  by  signals,  flags  of  different  col 
ors  being  used  to  designate  the  hours  assigned  to  males  or  females.  The  floor 
of  the  beach  is  hard  and  gently  shelving.  There  being  little  tide,  a  plunge 
into  the  sea  may  be  enjoyed  without  danger  from  quicksands  or  under-tow. 

On  the  eastern  side  of  Easton's  Point,  which  divides  what  would  otherwise 
be  a  continuous  beach  into 
two,  is  Purgatory  Bluff,  a 
mass  of  conglomerate  split 
asunder  by  some  unknown 
process  of  nature.  The  two 

faces   of  the  fissure   appear  ^  iK^t..  $fe- 

to  correspond  to  each  other,  §If£B  R^^i 

Sr  ±Xt±:  K»™«fc. 

them.  A  place  used  to  be 
shown  on  the  irregular  sur 
face  of  the  rocks  above  where 
the  Evil  Spirit  of  the  red 
men  once  dragged  a  squaw, 
and,  in  spite  of  her  frantic 
struggles,  which  might  be  traced,  dispatched  her,  and  flung  the  body  into  the 
chasm.  Another  and  more  recent  legend  is,  that  here  a  lover  was  dared  by 
his  mistress  to  leap  across  the  chasm,  some  fourteen  feet,  her  glove  to  be  the 
guerdon  of  his  success.  The  feat  was  performed,  but  the  lover  flung  the 
glove  into  the  face  of  his  silly  mistress.  What  seems  curious  in  these  fractures 
of  pudding-stone,  the  pebbles  break  in  the  same  direction  as  the  mass  of  rock.1 


PUKGATOKY  BLUFF. 


1  The  chasm  is  one  hundred  and  sixty  feet  in  length,  with  an  average  depth  of  about  sixty  feet. 


384 


THE  NEW  ENGLAND  COAST. 


WHITEHALL. 


Hanging  Rock,  a  favorite  haunt  of  good  Dean  Berkeley,  is  a  cavity  or  shelf 
where  it  would  be  practicable  to  sit,  and,  while  looking  off  to  sea,  indulge  in 
dreamy  musings.  Half  a  mile  farther  on  is  the  house  he  built,  and  afterward, 
on  his  departure  from  the  country,  gave  to  Yale.  It  bears  the  pretending 
name  of  Whitehall,  for,  though  comfortable-looking,  it  is  little  palatial. 

The  dean,  it  is  said,  told  the  painter,  Smibert,  who  ventured  to  betray 

some  distrust  of  his  patron's 
sanguine  belief  in  the  fu 
ture  importance  of  Newport, 
"  Truly,  you  have  very  little 
foresight,  for  in  fifty  years' 
time  every  foot  of  land  in 
this  place  will  be  as  valuable 
as  in  Cheapside."  If  he  in 
deed  made  the  remark  at 
tributed  to  him,  he  was  only 
a  century  or  so  out  of  his 
reckoning. 

The  name  and  fame  of 
George,  Bishop  of  Cloyne, 
the  friend  of  Swift  and  of 
Steele,  the  professor  of  an  ideal  philosophy,  and  the  projector  of  a  Utopian 
scheme  for  evangelizing  and  educating  the  Indians,  is  dear  to  the  people  of 
Newport.  He  came  to  America  in  1728  with  the  avowed  purpose  of  estab 
lishing  a  college, "  to  be  erected  on  the  Summer  Islands,"  the  "  still  vext  Ber- 
nioothes  "  of  Shakspeare. 

Berkeley  is  perhaps  more  familiar  to  American  readers  by  four  lines — of 
which  the  first  is  as  often  misquoted  as  any  literary  fragment  I  can  call  to 
mind — than  by  his  philosophical  treatises : 

"Westward  the  course  of  empire  takes  its  way; 

The  four  first  acts  already  past, 
A  fifth  shall  close  the  drama  with  the  day: 
Time's  noblest  offspring  is  the  last." 

The  residence  of  the  dean  at  Newport  was  a  forced  retirement,  the  sum 
of  twenty  thousand  pounds  promised  by  Sir  Robert  Walpole  in  aid  of  his 
college  never  having  been  paid.  In  this  college,  "  he  most  exorbitantly  pro 
posed,"  as  Swift  humorously  remarked, "  a  whole  hundred  pounds  a  year  for 
himself,  forty  pounds  for  a  fellow,  and  ten  for  a  student."  Seven  years  were 
passed  in  literary  pursuits ;  "  The  Minute  Philosopher,"  of  which  no  one  who 
comes  to  Newport  may  go  ignorant  away,  being  the  offspring  of  his  medita 
tions.  Along  with  the  dean  came  John  Smibert,  of  whose  canvases  a  few  re 
main  scattered  over  New  England,  and  whose  chief  excellence  lay  in  infusing 


PICTURESQUE  NEWPORT. 


385 


the  love  of  his  art  into  such  men  as  Copley,  Trumbull,  and  Allston.1  Pope 
assigns  to  Berkeley  "every  virtue  under  heaven."  There  is  no  question  but 
that  he  was  as  amiable  and  learned  as  he  was  thoroughly  speculative  and 
unpractical. 

The  return  to  town  by  Hony man's  Hill,  named  from  the  first  pastor  of 
Trinity,  is  thoroughly  enjoyable  and  interesting.  The  historical  student  may 
here  see  how  near 
the  Americans 
were  advanced 
toward  the  cap 
ture  of  Newport. 
An  old  windmill 
or  two  or  a  farm 
house  are  pictur 
esque  objects  by 
the  way. 

"  I  saw,"  says 
Miss  Martineau, 
"  the  house  which 
Berkeley  built  in 
Rhode  Island  — 
built  in  the  par 
ticular  spot  where 
it  is,  that  he  might 
have  to  pass,  in 
his  rides,  over  the 
hill  which  lies 
between  it  and 
Newport,  and 
feast  himself  with 
the  tranquil  beau 
ty  of  the  sea, 
the  bay,  and  the 
downs  as  they 
appear  from  the 

ridge  of  the  eminence.  I  saw  the  pile  of  rocks,  with  its  ledges  and  recesses, 
where  he  is  said  to  have  meditated  and  composed  his  *  Minute  Philosopher.' 
It  was  at  first  melancholy  to  visit  these  his  retreats,  and  think  how  empty 
the  land  still  is  of  the  philosophy  he  loved." 

1  Smibert  planned  the  original  Faneuil  Hall.  Boston.     Trumbull  painted  in  the  studio  left 
vacant  by  Smibert. 

25 


WASHINGTON  PARK,  NEWPORT. 


D'ESTAING. 


CHAPTER  XXIV. 

THE    FRENCH    AT   NEWPORT. 

"Grenadiers,  rendez-vous!" 

"La  Garde  meurt  et  ne  se  rend  pas." 

"Braves  Fransais,  rendez-vous ;  vous  serez  traite's  comme  les  premiers  soldats  du  monde." 

"La  garde  meurt  et  ne  se  rend  pas" — OLD  GJTARD  AT  WATERLOO. 

A  NOTHER  phase  of  Newport  in  by-gone  days  was  the  sojourn  of  our 
-"•  French  allies  in  the  Revolution.  Then  there  were  real  counts,  and 
dukes,  and  marquises  in  Newport.  There  had  also  been  a  British  occupa 
tion  ;  but  the  troops  of  his  Britannic  Majesty  ruined  the  town,  humiliated 
its  pride,  and  crushed  its  prejudices  under  an  armed  heel.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  French  soldiers  respected  property,  were  considerate  in  their  treat 
ment  of  the  inhabitants,  and  paid  scrupulously  for  every  thing  they  took.  In 
time  of  war  a  garrisoned  town  is  usually  about  equally  abused  by  friend  or 


THE  FRENCH  AT  NEWPORT.  387 

enemy.  Here  the  approach  of  the  French  was  dreaded,  and  their  departure 
regarded  as  a  misfortune. 

Apropos  to  the  good  behavior  of  our  French  friends  is  the  testimony  of 
an  eye-witness,  who  says :  "  The  different  deputations  of  savages  who  came  to 
view  their  camp  exhibited  no  surprise  at  the  sight  of  the  cannon,  the  troops, 
or  of  their  exercise;  but  they  could  not  recover  from  their  astonishment  at 
seeing  apple-trees  loaded  with  fruit  above  the  tents  which  the  soldiers  had 
been  occupying  for  three  months."  The  English,  during  their  occupation, 
had  burned  almost  the  last  fo/est-tree  on  the  island. 

The  astonishing  spectacle  of  monarchy  aiding  democracy  against  itself  is 
one  of  the  reflections  suggested  by  the  alliance.  Besides  Louis  Seize,  other 
crowned  heads  would  willingly  have  helped  America  as  against  the  old  "Ter 
magant  of  the  Seas,"  had  not  the  idea  been  too  illogical.  The  Empress 
Catherine  II.  is  reported  as  having  hinted,  in  a  private  interview  with  Sir 
James  Harris,1  at  the  possibility  of  restoring  European  peace  by  renouncing 
the  struggle  England  was  making  with  her  American  colonies.  "  May  I  ask 
your  Majesty,"  said  the  ruse  old  Briton,  "  if  this  would  be  your  policy  in  case 
the  colonies  had  belonged  to  you  ?" 

"  J'aimerais  mietix  perdre  ma  tete,"  replied  the  empress  (I  would  sooner 
lose  my  head). 

Kaiser  Joseph  repulsed  the  idea  with  equal  candor  and  bluntness:  "Ma 
dame,  mon  metier  a  moi  c'est  d'etre  royaliste "  (Madam,  my  trade  is  to  be 
a  royalist). 

This  was  not  the  first  move  France  had  made  to  detach  the  American 
colonies  from  the  British  crown.  Far  back  in  the  day  of  the  Puritans  the 
thing  had  been  attempted.  Again,  in  1767,  M.  de  Choiseul  dispatched  Baron 
De  Kalb  on  a  secret  mission.  The  baron  came,  saw,  and  made  his  report. 
He  wrote  from  Boston  in  March,  1768,  that  he  did  not  believe  it  possible  to 
induce  the  Americans  to  accept  foreign  aid,  on  account  of  their  fixed  faith  in 
their  sovereign's  justice.3  We  were  still,  while  growling,  licking  the  hand 
that  smote  us.  And  this  little  fragment  shows  that  before  the  day  of  Caron 
Beaumarchais,  of  "  Sleek  Silas,"  of  "  Sleek  Benjamin,"  the  idea  of  assistance 
was  already  germinating.  France  was  to  heave  away  at  the  old  British 
empire  as  soon  as  she  had  found  a  fulcrum  on  which  to  rest  her  lever. 

D'Estaing  came  first  to  Newport ;  but  his  appearance,  like  that  of  a  me 
teor,  was  very  brilliant  and  very  brief.  Besides  being  vice-admiral, he  was  also 
lieutenant-general,  and  brought  with  him  something  in  excess  of  fifteen  hun 
dred  land  soldiers,  without  counting  the  marines  of  his  fleet.  The  chevalier 
advanced  his  squadron  in  two  divisions,  one  ascending  the  Narraganset,  the 
other  the  Seconnet  passage.  He  cannonaded  Sir  Robert  Pigot's  batteries,  de- 

1  British  ambassador  at  St.  Petersburg,  afterward  Lord  Malmesbury. 
3  Massachusetts  Files. 


388 


THE  NEW  ENGLAND  COAST. 


EARL   HOWE. 


stroyed  some  British  vessels,  and  caused  some  addition  to  the  national  debt 
of  England.  Then,  when  the  pear  was  ready  to  fall,  at  sight  of  Earl  Howe's 
fleet  he  put  to  sea,  and  was  battered  by  his  lordship  and  by  storms  until  he 
brought  his  shattered  vessels  into  Boston  Harbor,  where  he  should  refit,  and 
taste  Governor  Hancock's  wine. 

The  Americans,  who  had  advanced  under  Sullivan  within  two  miles  of 
Newport — old  continentals,  militia,  and  volunteer 
corps,  full  of  fight  and  confident  of  success — were 
obliged  to  withdraw  in  good  order  but  bad  tem 
per.  Sullivan  secured  his  retreat  by  a  brilliant 
little  action  at  the  head  of  the  island. 

The  French  at  Boston  found  themselves  very 
ill  received.  They  were  accused  of  having  aban 
doned,  betrayed  Sullivan.  French  sailors  and  sol 
diers  were  beaten  in  the  streets,  and  their  officers 
seriously  wounded  in  attempting  to  quell  affrays 
with  the  populace.  D'Estaing  conducted  himself 
with  great  circumspection.  He  refused  to  press  the  punishment  of  the  lead 
ers  in  these  outrages;  but,  stung  by  the  imputation  of  cowardice,  offered  to 
put  himself,  a  vice-admiral  of  France,  with  seven  hundred  men,  under  the 
orders  of  Sullivan,  who,  says  a  French  historian,  "  was  lately  nothing  but  a 
lawyer." 

An  extraordinary  number  of  personages,  distinguished  in  the  Revolution, 
or  under  the  empire,  its  successor,  served  France  in  America.  The  heads  of 
many  fell  under  the  guillotine.  In  this  way  perished  D'Estaing.  He  was  in 
Paris  during  the  Reign  of  Terror,  and  present  at  the  trial  of  Marie  Antoinette. 
One  of  those  ladies  who  met  him  at  Boston  describes  him  as  of  dignified 
presence,  affable,  and  gracious. 

With  D'Estaing  came  Jourdan,  a  shop-keeper,  and  the  son  of  a  doctor. 
At  sixteen  he  was  the  comrade  of  Rochambeau,  and  in  the  same  regiment 
Montcalm  had  commanded  in  1743.  The  Limou 
sin  shows  with  pride  to  the  stranger  the  old 
wooden  house,  with  dark  front,  in  which  the 
conqueror  of  Fleurus  was  born.  The  marshal 
who  had  commanded  the  army  of  the  Sambre  et 
Meuse  became  the  scape-goat  of  Vittoria. 

After  D'Estaing  came  Rochambeau,  and  with 
him  a  crowd  of  young  officers  of  noble  birth,  for 
tune's  favorites,  who  yet  sought  with  the  eager 
ness  of  knights -errant  to  enroll  themselves  in 
the  ranks  of  the  alliance.  Gay,  careless,  chival- 
ric,  and  debonair,  carrying  their  high-bred  court 
esy  even  to  the  front  of  battle,  they  were  worthy 


ROCHAMBEAU. 


THE  FRENCH  AT  NEWPORT. 


339 


sons  of  the  men  who  at  Fontenoy  advanced,  hat  in  hand,  from  the  ranks,  and 
saluted  their  English  enemies:  "Apres  vous,  messieurs  les  Anglais;  nous  ne 
tirons  jamais  les  premiers"  (After  you,  gentlemen  ;  we  never  tire  first). 

Having  in  some  respects  remained  much  as  when  the  French  were  here, 
there  is  no  greater  difficulty  in  beating  our  imaginary  rappel  than  in  suppos 
ing  Newport  peopled  when  walking  at  night  through  its  deserted  streets. 
We  suppose  an  intrenched  camp  drawn  across  the  island  from  the  sea  to 

the  harbor,  having  town, 
fleet,  and  transports  under 
its  wing,  and  batteries  on 
all  the  points  and  islands. 
Twelve  days  sufficed  to  se 
cure  the  position  to  the  sat 
isfaction  of  Rochambeau, 
who  shrugged  his  shoulders, 
saying,  as  another  and 
greater  said  after  him,  "I 
have  them  now,  these  En 
glish."  Yet  Washington, 
remembering  Long  Island 
and  Fort  Washington,  wrote 
in  July  to  General  Heath,  "  I  wish  the  Count  de  Rochambeau  had  taken  a 
position  on  the  main."1 

Under  British  rule,  Newport  wore  a  muzzle;  under  French,  a  collar  bris 
tling  with  steel.  The  white  standard  wras  un 
folded  to  the  breeze  in  all  the  camps  and  from 
the  masts  of  shipping.  Tents  and  marquees  were 
pitched  along  the  line  and  dotted  the  green  of 
Canonicut,  Rose  Island,  Coaster's  and  Goat  isl 
ands.  Bayonets  brightly  and  cannon  duskily 
flashed  in  the  sun  everywhere.  Sentinels  in 
white  uniforms,  black  gaiters,  and  woolen  epau 
lets  tramped  in  little  paths  of  their  own  mak 
ing.  Officers  in  white,  splendidly  gold -em 
broidered,  with  rich  and  elegant  side-arms,  put 
to  the  blush  such  of  our  poor  fellows  as  chanced 
in  their  camps.  In  every  shady  spot  groups 
of  soldiers,  gay  and  jovial,  reclined  on  the 
grass,  chattering  all  together,  or  laughing  at  the  witticism  of  the  company 
gaittard.  The  drum — the  type  military,  which  has  scarcely  changed  its  form 


ROCHAMBEAU  S   HEAD-QUARTERS. 


LOUIS  XVI. 


1  Heath  then  commanded  at  Providence :  he  was  ordered  to  meet  Rochambeau  on  his  arrival, 
and  extend  any  assistance  in  his  power. 


390 


THE  NEW  ENGLAND   COAST. 


in  three  hundred  years  —  was  improvised  into  the  card  -  table.     "Jf«  fois," 
"paroles  tfhonneur,"  "  sacres,"  and  "  mittes  tonnerres?  flew  thickly  as  bullets 

at  Fontenoy. 

A  finer  body  of  men  had  probably  never  taken  the  field.    Many  were 

seasoned  in  the  Seven  Years'  War. 
Perfectly  disciplined,  commanded  by 
generals  of  experience,  they  only  ask 
ed  to  be  led  against  the  hereditary 
enemy  of  France.  Officers  who  had 
mounted  guard  at  the  Tuileries,  and 
had  been  intimate  with  crowned 
heads,  embraced  the  campaign  with 
the  careless  vivacity  of  school-boys. 

In  the  present  region  of  old  houses 
is  a  mansion  having  a  high  air  of  re 
spectability ;  it  is  situated  at  the 
corner  of  Clarke  and  Mary  streets, 
and  known  as  the  Vernon  House. 
This  was  the  Quartier  General  of  the 
Count  Rochambeau,  one  of  the  four 
supreme  generals  of  France  in  those 
days.  The  count  was  a  brave  old 
soldier,  rather  short  in  stature,  rather 
inclined  to  fat,  with  a  humane  soul 
and  noble  heart.  He  was  hampered 
by  his  instructions,  and  his  army  lost 
time  here,  to  the  vexation  of  Wash 
ington,  and  chagrin,  it  is  believed,  of 
himself.  Hear  what  he  says  when 
teased  by  a  younger  soldier  to  begin 
the 


MILITARY  MAP  OF   RHODE  ISLAND,  1778. 


"I  owe  it  to  the  most  scrupulous 
examination  of  my  conscience,  that 
of  about  fifteeen  thousand  men  killed 
or  wounded  under  my  orders  in  differ- 


ent  grades  and  in  the  bloodiest  actions,  I  have  not  to  reproach  myself  with 
having  caused  the  death  of  a  single  one  to  gratify  my  own  ambition. 

"  LE  VIEUX  PERE  ROCHAMBEAU." 

It  was  to  Lafayette,  burning  with  the  desire  to  see  his  countrymen  sig 
nalize  their  coming  otherwise  than  by  balls,  routs,  and  reviews,  that  the  letter 
was  addressed.  Rochambeau  was  under  the  orders  of  Washington,  yet  many 
of  his  officers  disliked  being  commanded  by  Lafayette,  their  junior  in  military 


THE  FRENCH  AT  NEWPORT. 


391 


LAFAYETTE. 


The  career  of  M.  de  Ternay,  admiral  of  the  fleet,  was  soon  ended.    He  died 
in  Newport,  and  was  buried  in  Trinity  Church-yard.     One  of  Rochambeau's 

staff-officers  ascribes  his  death  to  cha 
grin  in  consequence  of  having  permit 
ted  five  English  ships  to  escape  him 
without  a  general  engagement.  These 
ships  were  then  on  their  way  to  join 
Admiral  Rodney.  It  is  certain  he  was 
openly  denounced  by  many  officers  of 
rank  for  too  great  caution.  Rocharn- 
beau  says : 

"  Newport,  December  18th,  1780. 
"  I  set  out  from  here  on  the  12th  to 
visit  Boston  and  M.  Hancock,  leaving 
here  M.  de  Ternay  with  a  slight  fever, 
which  announced  nothing  serious.  On 
the  16th,  in  the  morning,  I  received  a 
courier  from  Baron  de  Viomenil,  an 
nouncing  his  death  on  the  morning 
of  the  loth.  I  returned  at  once,  and 
reached  here  yesterday  evening." 

A  mural  tablet  of  black  marble  inscribed  with  golden  letters  was  sent 
from  France.  The  admiral's  grave  happening  not  to  be  contiguous  to  the 
church  or  church -yard  wall,  a  wall  was  built  to  support  the  slab.  Since 
then  it  has  been  removed  to  the  vestibule  of  Trinity  Church,  and  a  granite 
stone,  at  the  instance  of  the  Marquis  de  Noailles,  has  replaced  it  above  the 
grave.  The  first  house,  built  in  1702,  was  succeeded 
in  1726  by  the  present  edifice.  An  organ  was  pre 
sented  by  Bishop  Berkeley,  whose  infant  daughter 
lies  in  the  church-yard. 

In  March,  1781, Washington,  accompanied  by  La 
fayette,  came  to  Newport,  and  was  received  by  Ro- 
chambeau  in  the  Yernon  House.  The  curious  in 
terest  with  which  the  American  general  was  regard 
ed  by  his  allies  is  sufficiently  evident  in  their  ac 
counts  of  him.  He  at  once  commanded  all  their 
admiration  and  respect,  and  was  perhaps  their  only 
ideal  not  destroyed  by  actual  contact.  They  still  show  the  visitor  the  house 
in  Church  Street  where  Washington  led  the  dance  with  "  the  beautiful  Miss 
Champlin,"  and  where  the  French  officers,  taking  the  instruments  from  the 
musicians'  hands,  played  the  minuet,  "A  successful  Campaign." 

Another  of  the  noblesse  of  the  army  was  the  Viscount  de  Noailles,  in 
whose  regiment  Napoleon  was  afterward  a  subaltern.     Two  grateful  tasks 


BARON  VIOMENIL. 


392  THE  NEW  ENGLAND   COAST, 

fell  to  his  share  in  the  war.     As  ambassador  to  England 


.TRINITY  CHUKCH. 

evacuate  Rhode  Island  and  every  other  part  of  his 
America;  "no  stipulation  or  agreement  whatever  to 
be  made  with  regard  to  H.  M.  rebellious  subjects, 
who  could  never  be  suffered  to  treat  through  the 

O 

medium  of  a  foreign  power." 

The  Dutch  republic,  influenced  by  John  Adams, 
having  declared  for  the  alliance,  England  demand 
ed  satisfaction.  Then  Frederick  the  Great  got  his 

O 

"  dander"  up.  Said  he,  "Puisque  les  Anglais  veulent 
la  guerre  avec  tout  le  monde,  ils  Pauront"  (Since 
the  English  wish  war  with  all  the  world,  they  shall 
have  it).  So  much  for  him  who  was  then  called  in 
the  court  circles  of  Europe  "  Le  Vieux  de  la  Mon- 


,  he  delivered  to  Lord 
Wey  mouth  intelli 
gence  of  the  alliance 
and  acknowledgment 
of  the  independence 
of  the  thirteen  States. 
His  manner  was  said 
to  have  been  very  of 
fensive,  and  consid 
ered  tantamount  to  a 
challenge.  An  equal 
ly  agreeable  duty  de 
volved  upon  him  as 
one  of  the  commis 
sioners  to  arrange  the 
capitulation  of  York- 
town. 

The  alliance  was 
a  bitter  draught  for 
England.  She  offer 
ed,  in  1781,  to  cede 
Minorca  to  Russia  if 
the  empress  would  ef 
fect  a  peace  between 
France,  Spain,  and 
herself;  but  stipula 
ted  that  there  should 
be  an  express  condi 
tion  that  the  French 
should  immediately 
Majesty's  colonies  in 


CHASTELLUX. 


THE  FRENCH  AT  NEWPORT. 


393 


tagne"  (Old  Man  of  the  Mountain).  Spain  was  arming.  England  continued 
to  ply  the  empress  through  her  favorite  and  debauchee,  Potemkin.  Russia, 
as  head  of  the  Northern  League,  now  held  the  key  of  European  politics. 
Potemkin  was  too  adroit  for  British  diplomacy.  It  is  believed  he  had  a 
secret  understanding  with  the  French  ambassador,  as  the  doctors  whom  Mo- 
liere  makes  say  to  each  other,  "Passez-moi  la  rhubarbe  et  je  vous  passerai  le 
sene." 

In  this  same  year,  1781,  the  mediating  powers,  Russia  and  Austria,  pro 
posed  an  armistice  for  a  year,  during  which  hostilities  were  to  be  suspended 
and  peace  negotiated.  The  American  colonies  were  to  be  admitted  to  this 
arrangement,  and  no  treaty  signed  in  which  they  were  not  included.  Lord 
Stormont,  in  notifying  the  refusal  of  England  to  this  proposal,  declining  any 
intervention  between  herself  and  her  colonies,  pointed  out  that,  in  the  then 
state  of  the  struggle  in  America,  a  suspension  of  hostilities  would  be  fatal  to 
the  success  of  his  Majesty's  arms. 

England  could  not  disentangle  the  knot  of  European  politics,  and  York- 
town  brought  her  to  her  knees.  Many  of 
the  Continental  powers  openly  rejoiced  at 
her  humiliation ;  Catharine  could  scarcely 
dissemble  her  joy.  The  news  reached  Lon 
don  on  Sunday,  November  25th.  Lord  Wal- 
singham,  who  had  been  under-secretary  of 
state,  happened  to  be  with  Lord  Germain 
when  the  messengers  arrived.  Without  men 
tioning  the  disaster  to  any  other  persons,  the 
two  peers  took  a  hackney-coach  and  drove 
to  Lord  Stormont's,  in  Portland  Place.  Im 
parting  their  intelligence,  his  lordship  joined 
them,  and  they  proceeded  to  the  chancellor's, 
where,  after  a  short  consultation,  it  was  de 
termined  they  would  communicate  it  in  per 
son  to  Lord  North.  The  first  minister's  firm 
ness,  and  even  his  presence  of  mind,  gave  way 
under  this  crushing  blow.  He  is  represent 
ed  as  having  received  it  "  as  he  would  have 
taken  a  ball  in  his  breast,  for  he  opened 
his  arms,  exclaiming  wildly,  as  he  paced  up 
and  down  the  apartment,  '  O  God !  it  is  all 
over!'" 


LAUZUN. 


The  American  is  now  living  who  will  see  justice  done  the  memory  of 
George  III.  He  was  neither  a  bad  king  nor  a  bad  man.  Like  his  antagonist, 
Louis  Seize,  he  was  possessed  of  strong  good  sense,  which  accounts,  perhaps, 
says  one,  for  the  decapitation  of  Louis  by  the  French.  A  well-informed  au- 


394 


THE  NEW  ENGLAND  COAST. 


MATHIEU  DUMAS. 


thority  attributes  the  insanity  of  George  III.  to  the  revolt  of  his  American 
colonies.  Just  as  he  was  taken  ill,  in  1788,  he  said,  after  the  last  levee  he 
held,  to  Lord  Thurlow,  who  was  advising  him  to  take  care  of  himself,  and  re 
turn  to  Windsor,  "You,  then,  too,  my  Lord  Thurlow,  forsake  me  and  suppose 
me  ill  beyond  recovery ;  but  whatever  you  and  Mr.  Pitt  may  think  or  feel,  I, 
that  am  born  a  gentleman,  shall  never  lay  my  head  on  my  last  pillow  in  peace 
and  quiet  as  long  as  I  remember  the  loss  of  my  American  colonies."1 

But  to  come  back  to  our  Frenchmen.  Of  others  whose  sabres  and  spurs 
have  clanked  or  jingled  on  the  well-worn  door-stone 
of  the  Vernon  House  was  Biron,  better  known  as  the 
roue  Lauzun.  There  being  no  forage  on  the  island, 
Lauzun's  cavalry  and  the  artillery  horses  were  sent 
for  the  winter  to  Lebanon,  Connecticut,  a  place  the 
duke  compares  to  Siberia.  Lauzuli  had  the  talents 
that  seduce  men  as  well  as  women.  Traveled, 
speaking  English  well,  gay  and  audacious,  he  was 
among  men  the  model  of  a  finished  gentleman,  and 
among  women  the  type  of  such  dangerous  raillery 
that  many,  in  order  to  control  him,  gave  the  lie  to 
the  proverb, "  We  hate  whom  we  fear." 

At  Berlin  Lauzun  had  been  a  prodigious  favor 
ite  with  Frederick.  His  connection  with  the  Duke  d'Orleans  (Egalite)  proved 
his  ruin.  At  forty-six;  having  unsuccessfully  commanded  the  republican 
armies  in  La  Vendee,  he  was  guillotined  in  1793. 
Mademoiselle  Laurent,  his  mistress,  attended  him 
to  the  last.  He  would  not  let  his  hands  be  tied. 
"  We  are  both  Frenchmen,"  said  he  to  the  exe 
cutioner;  "we  shall  do  our  duty."  Thus  exit 
Biron,  capable  of  every  thing,  good  for  nothing. 
The  elegant  and  accomplished  Marquis  Chas- 
tell.ux,  whose  petits  soupers  at  Newport  were 
the  talk  of  every  one  who  had  the  good  fortune 
to  be  invited,  and  whose  "Travels  in  America," 
partly  printed  on.  board  the  French  fleet,  are  so 
charmingly  written ;  the  brave  Baron  Viomenil, 
second  in  command,  distinguished  for  gallantry 
at  Yorktown ;  headlong  Charles  Lameth,  who  fought  the  young  Duke  de  Cas 
tries  in  the  Bois  de  Boulogne ;  Mathieu  Dumas,  aid  to  Rochambeau,  and  af- 

1  The  manner  and  matter  of  his  reception  of  Mr.  Adams  were  equally  those  of  gentleman  and 
king.  Contrast  him  with  the  Prince  Regent,  and  his  remark  to  the  French  ex-minister,  Calonne, 
during  his  father's  sudden  illness,  in  1801 :  "  Savez-vous,  Monsieur  de  Calonne,  que  mon  pere  est 
aussi  fou  que  jamais  ?"  (Do  you  know,  Monsieur  de  Calonne,  that  my  father  is  as  crazy  as  ever  ?) 
Thackeray  could  not  do  him  justice. 


DEUX-PONTS. 


THE  FRENCH  AT  NEWPORT.  395 

terward  fighting  at  Waterloo,  were  prominent  figures  in  an  army  pre-eminent 
among  armies  for  the  distinction  of  its  leaders. 

La  Peyrouse,  in  October,  made  his  escape  through  the  English  blockade 
during  a  severe  gale,  in  which  his  vessel  was  dismasted ;  though,  fortunately, 
not  until  the  enemy  had  given  up  the  chase.  He  carried  with  him  Rocham- 
beau's  son,  charged  with  an  account  of  the  conference  at  Hartford  and  the 
necessities  of  the  Americans. 

Berthier,  the  military  confidant  of  Napoleon,  was  of  this  army.     He  em 
barked  for  America,  a  captain  of  dragoons  in  the 
regiment  of  Lorraine,  and  here  won  the  epaulets 
of  a  colonel.     There  were  also  two  brothers  servino- 

O 

under  the  name  of  Counts  Deux-Ponts.  One  of  them, 
Count  Christian  Deux-Ponts,  was  captured  by  Nel 
son,  while  on  a  boat  excursion  with  several  friends, 
off  Porto  Cavallo.  Southey,  in  his  "Life  of  Lord 
Nelson,"  says  he  was  a  prince  of  the  German  Em 
pire,  and  brother  to  the  heir  of  the  Electorate  of 
Bavaria.  Nelson,  then  a  young  captain,  after  giving 
his  prisoners  a  good  dinner,  released  them.1 

It  would  require  a  broad  muster-roll  merely  to 

enumerate  the  distinguished  of  Rochambeau's  expeditionary  army.  I  have 
not  yet  mentioned  De  Broglie,  Vauban,  Champcenetz,  Chabannes,  De  Mel- 
fort,  and  Talleyrand;  nor  De  Barras,  La  Touche,  and  La  Clocheterie;  nor 
Desoteux,  leader  of  Chouans  in  the  French  Revolution.  To  have  withstood 
the  assaults  of  so  much  wit,  gallantry,  and  condescension,  Newport  must 
have  been  a  city  of  vestals ;  yet,  according  to  the  good  Abbe  Robin,  his 
countrymen  gave  few  examples  of  that  gallantry  for  which  their  nation  is 
famed.  One  remarkable  instance  of  a  wife  reclaimed,  when  on  the  point  of 
yielding  to  the  seductions  of  an  epauleted  stranger,  is  related  by  him.  The 
story  has  a  fine  moral  for  husbands  as  well  as  wives. 

The  expected  arrival  of  this  army  spread  terror  in  Newport.  The  French 
had  been  represented  a&  man-eaters,  whereas  they  were  only  frog-eaters.  The 
country  was  deserted,  and  those  whom  curiosity  had  brought  to  Newport  en 
countered  nobody  in  the  streets.  Rocharnbeau  landed  in  the  evening.  These 
fears  were  soon  dissipated  by  the  exact  discipline  enforced  in  the  camps. 
They  tell  of  pigs  and  fowls  passing  unmolested,  and  of  fields  of  corn  standing 
untouched  in  their  midst. 

Beautiful  Miss  Champlin,  charming  Redwood,  the  distingue  Misses  Hun 
ter,  and  the  Quaker  vestal,  Polly  Lawton,  are  names  escaped  to  us  from  the 

1  The  fello\v-prisoner  of  Count  Christian  Deux-Ponts  was  an  Irishman,  named  Lynch,  who 
belonged  also  to  Rochambeau's  army.  Fearful  that  his  nationality  might  be  discovered,  he  begged 
the  count  to  be  on  his  guard.  When  at  table,  and  heated  with  wine,  the  secret  was  divulged  by 
the  count ;  but  Nelson,  as  Segur  relates,  pretended  not  to  have  heard  it. 


396 


THE  NEW  ENGLAND  COAST. 


memoirs  of  Gallic  admirers;  yet  there  was  only  a  single  suicide  in  the  French 
ranks  justly  chargeable  to  an  American  love  account;1  and  this  did  not  occur 
in  Newport. 

One  of  the  French  regiments  at  Yorktown  was  as  famous  in  Old -World 
annals  as  any  battalion  that  ever  stood  under  arms.  This  was  the  regi 
ment  of  Auvergne.  Wherever  men  might  march,  Auvergne  was  seen  or 
heard.  Once,  when  in  the  advance  of  the  army  — it  was  always  there  — 
one  of  its  captains,  sent  out  to  reconnoitre,  was  surrounded  in  the  darkness 
by  foes.  A  hundred  bayonets  were  leveled  at  his  breast.  "Speak  above  a 
whisper  and  you  die,"  said  the  German  officer.  Captain  D'Assas  saw  him 
self  in  the  midst  of  a  multi 
tude  of  enemies,  who  were 
stealthily  approaching  his 
weary  and  unsuspecting 
comrades.  In  an  instant 
his  resolution  was  taken. 
Raising  himself  to  his  full 
height,  that  he  might  give 
his  voice  greater  effect, 
he  cried  out,  "  A  moi,  Au 
vergne  !  voila  les  enne- 
mis!"2  and  fell  dead  as  the 
French  drums  beat  "  To 
arms  !"  The  regiment  was 
very  proud  of  its  motto, 
"Sans  tache." 

In  this  regiment  was 
Philip  d'Auvergne,  "  the 
first  grenadier  of  France," 
of  whose  prowess  stories 
little  less  than  marvelous 
are  told.  When  the  corps 
came  to  America  its  name 
had  been  changed  to  Ga- 
tinais,  whereat  there  was 
much  grumbling  among 
these  aged  mustaches.  There  were  two  redoubts  at  Yorktown  to  be  taken. 
One  was  assigned  to  Lafayette  and  his  Americans,  the  other  to  the  French. 
The  grenadiers  of  Gatinais  were  to  lead  this  attack;  and,  as  it  was  expected 
to  be  bloody,  Rochambeau  himself  addressed  them.  "My  friends,"  said  he, 


LATOUR  D'AUVERGNE. 


1  That  of  Major  Galvan,  who  pistoled  himself  on  account  of  unrequited  love. 

2  Rally,  Anvergne!  here  is  the  enemy! 


THE   FRENCH  AT  NEWPORT.  397 

"if  I  should  want  you  this  night,  I  hope  you  have  not  forgotten  that  we  have 
served  together  in  that  brave  regiment  of  Auvergne,  'Sans  T ache?  "  "Prom 
ise,  general,  to  give  us  back  our  old  name,  and  we  will  suffer  ourselves  to  be 
killed,  to  the  last  man."  The  promise  was  given,  the  redoubt  won,  and  King 
Louis  confirmed  the  pledge.  In  token  of  its  peerless  valor  Washington  pre 
sented  the  regiment  with  one  of  the  captured  cannon. 

The  comfortable  and  contented  lives  of  the  French  soldiers  daily  aston 
ished  our  poor  and  tattered,  but  unconquerable  ragamuffins.  At  parade  they 
appeared  so  neat  and  gentleman-like  as  hardly  to  be  distinguished  from  their 
officers.  They  were  paid  every  week,  and  seemed  to  want  for  nothing.  No 
sentinel  was  allowed  to  stand  on  his  post  without  a  warm  watch-coat  to 
cover  him.  The  officers  treated  their  soldiers  with  attention,  humanity,  and 
respect,  neglecting  no  means  of  inculcating  sentiments  of  honor.  Stealing 
was  held  by  them  in  abhorrence.  As  a  consequence,  punishments  were  ex 
tremely  rare,  desertions  unfrequent,  and  the  health  of  the  troops  excellent. 

Speculations  more  or  less  unfavorable  to  French  disinterestedness,  more 
or  less  destructive  of  American  enthusiasm  for  the  alliance,  must  arise  from  a 
knowledge  of  the  secret  policy  of  France  in  corning  to  the  aid  of  democracy. 
Possibly  she  hoped  for  the  reconquest  of  Canada.  Rochambeau  would  have 
first  employed  his  forces  against  Castine,  had  he  not  been  overruled.  That 
would  have  been  curious,  indeed,  to  have  seen  France  re-established  at  old 
Pentagoet,  carrying  war  into  Canada,  as,  more  than  a  century  previous  and 
from  the  same  vantage-ground,  she  had  carried  it  into  New  England.  Not 
much  later  she  tried  to  wheedle  and  then  to  bully  us  into  ceding  to  her  the 
island  of  Rhode  Island,  in  order,  as  urged  by  her,  to  prevent  its  being  seized 
again  at  any  future  time  by  Great  Britain.  Her  armed  intervention  was  of 
little  worth  compared  with  the  moral  effect  of  the  alliance. 

Pierre  du  Guast  had  groped  his  way  along  the  coast  in  1605,  seeking  a 
habitation.  He,  and  his  lieutenant,  Poutrincourt,  had  well-nigh  reached  their 
goal  when  compelled  to  turn  back,  baffled,  for  wintry  Acadia.  A  French 
colony,  in  1605,  upon  Aquidneck  might  have  changed  the  order  of  history, 
and  rendered  impossible  the  events  of  which  this  chapter  is  the  skeleton. 


GRAVES  ON  THE  BLUFF,  FOKT  KOAD. 


CHAPTER  XXV. 

NEWPORT     CEMETERIES. 

"Come,  my  spade.    There  is  no  ancient  gentlemen  but  gardeners,  ditchers,  and  grave-makers  ; 
they  hold  up  Adam's  profession." — SHAKSPEARE. 

\  SSUMING  the  looker-on  to  be  free  from  all  qualms  on  the  subject  of 
-£•*-  grave-yard  associations,  I  invite  him  to  loiter  with  me  awhile  among 
the  tombstones  of  buried  Newport.  As  we  thread  the  streets  of  the  town, 
sign-boards  or  door-plates  inform  us  who  are  the  occupants ;  and  in  pursuing 
the  narrow  paths  of  the  burial-place,  the  tablets  set  up  denote,  not  only  the 
final  residences,  but  symbolize  the  dread  of  the  world's  forgetfulness,  of  those 
who  sleep  there.  The  analogy  might  still  be  pursued,  as  it  was  an  old  cus 
tom  to  inscribe  the  occupation  and  birthplace  upon  a  memorial  stone.  Here 
is  ons  I  found  in  the  old  ground  adjoining  Rhode  Island  Cemetery : 

Here  lyeth  the  Body 

of  Roger  Baster 
Bachelor  Block  mackr 
Aged  66  yeres     He  Dyed 
23  Day  of  Aprel  1687 

He  XXas  one  of  the  Fi 
rst  Beginers  of  a  Chv 

rch  of  Christ  obsrving 

Of  the  ;th  Day  Sab 
.  bath  of  T£  LORD  f  N 
NE  AO  BEGAN  230  *J  1671 

The  grave -yards  are  the  first  green  spots.     Dandelions,  buttercups,  and 


NEWPORT  CEMETERIES. 


399 


daisies  blossom  earliest  there.  The  almost  imperceptible  shading-off  of  winter 
into  spring  is  signaled  by  tufts  of  freshly  springing  grass  on  the  sunny  side 
of  a  grave-stone;  the  birds  build  betimes  among  the  tree-branches  of  the 
cemetery.  Your  grave-maker  is  always  a  merry  fellow,  Who  cares  no  more 
for  carved  cross-bones  than  for  the  clay-pipes  so  artistically  crossed  in  shop- 
windows. 

I  found  many  stones  dating  from  1726  to  1800,  but  even  these  had  be 
come  much  defaced  by  time.  Where  freestone  slabs  had  been  used,  the  in 
scriptions  were  either  illegible  or  quite  obliterated.  Some  of  the  older  slate 
stones  had  been  painted  to  protect  them  from  the  weather.  The  city  takes 
commendable  care  of  the  grounds;  yet  I  could  not  help  thinking  that  a  little 
money  might  be  well  spent  in  renewing  the  fading  inscriptions.  Throughout 
the  inclosure  the  pious  chisel  of  some  "  Old  Mortality"  is  painfully  in  request. 

In  a  retired  part  of  the  ground  I  found  two  horizontal  slabs — one  of  white, 
the  other  red,  freestone — lying  side  by  side  over  man  and  wife.  I  transcribed 
the  epitaph  of  the  wife,  as  the  more  characteristic : 

HERE  LYETH  THE  BODY  OF  HARTE 
GARDE  THE  WIFE  OF  IOHN  GARDE 
MERCHANT  WHO  DEPARTED  THIS 

THE    1 6    DAY    OF    SEPTEMBER    AN 

DOM  1660 
AGED  55  YEARS. 

Another  slate  stone  contained  the 
singular  inscription  given  in  the  en 
graving;  and  still  another  was  let 
tered  : 

In  Memory  Of 

Mrs-  Elizabeth  Lintu 

rn  widow  for  many 

years  a  noted  midwife 

She  departed  this  life 

October  23d  1758 

In  the  63d  year  of  her  age. 

In  the  old  Common  Burying- 
ground  is  the  following  plaint : 

Here  doth  Simon  Parrett  lye 
Whose  wrongs  did  for  justice  cry 
But  none  could  haue 
And  now  the  Graue 
Keeps  him  from  Inivrie 
Who  Departed  this  life 
Tie  23  Day  of  May  1718 
Aged  84  years. 


400  THE  NEW  ENGLAND  COAST. 

Farewell  Street,  by  which  you  approach  the  principal  cemetery  of  New 
port,  is  not  ill-named.  The  ground,  a  generally  level  area,  permits  the  eye  to 
roam  over  the  whole  region  of  graves.  Glimpses  of  the  bay  and  of  the  isl 
ands  dispersed  so  picturesquely  about  it  harmonize  with  the  calm  of  the 
place.  Sails  drift  noiselessly  by,  and  the  fragrance  of  evergreens  and  of  eg 
lantine  perfumes  the  air.  There  was  breeze  enough  to  bring  the  strains  of 
martial  music  from  the  fort  even  here. 

It  is  stated,  I  know  not  how  authoritatively,  that  the  Hessians,  whose  hos 
pital  was  close  at  hand,  defaced  many  stones  here  by  altering  the  inscriptions. 
Here  is  buried  William  Ellery,1  one  of  the  signers  of  the  Declaration.  On 
the  day  of  his  death  he  rose  as  usual,  dressed,  and  seated  himself  in  the  old 
flag-bottomed  chair  which  he  had  sat  in  for  more  than  half  a  century.  Here 
he  remained  reading  a  volume  of  Cicero  in  Latin  until  his  physician,  who  had 
dropped  in,  perceived  that  he  could  scarcely  raise  his  eyelids  to  look  at  him. 
The  doctor  found  his  pulse  gone.  After  giving  him  a  little  wine  and  water, 

Dr>  \\r told  him  his  pulse   beat   stronger.      "  Oh,  yes,  doctor,  I  have  a 

charming  pulse,"  expressing  at  the  same  time  his  conviction  that  his  life  was 
nearly  ended,  and  his  thankfulness  that  he  was  to  pass  away  free  from  sick 
ness  or  pain.  He  at  last  consented  to  be  placed  upright  in  bed,  so  that  he 
might  continue  reading.  He  died  thus  without  attracting  the  notice  of  his 
attendants,  like  a  man  who  becomes  drowsy  and  falls  asleep,  sitting  in  the 
same  posture,  with  the  book  under  his  chin.  Here  is  also  the  tomb  of  Gov 
ernor  Cranston,  and  the  gray  stone  slab  with  typical  skull  and  cross-bones,  on 
which  is  graven  the  name  of  William  Jefferay,  said  to  have  been  one  of 
Charles  Stuart's  judges.  Among  other  specimens  of  grave-yard  literature  is 
the  inscription  to  Christopher  Ellery:  "The  Human  Form  respected  for  its 
honesty,  and  known  for  fifty-three  years  by  the  appellation  of  Christopher 
Ellery,  began  to  dissolve  in  the  month  of  February,  1789." 

There  is  not  so  much  quaintness  in  the  epitaphs  here  as  in  the  old  Puritan 
grave-yards  of  Boston  and  Salem ;  less  even  of  stateliness,  of  pomp,  and  of 
human  pride  than  is  usual.  I  missed  the  Latin,  the  blazonry,  and  the  sounding 
detail  of  public  service  so  often  seen  spread  over  every  inch  of  crumbling 
old  tombstones.  The  grotesque  emblems  of  skull,  cross-bones,  and  hour-glass 
— bugbears  to  frighten  children — change  in  a  generation  or  two  to  weeping- 
willows,  urns,  and  winged  cherubs.  These  are  in  turn  discarded  for  sculp 
tured  types  of  angels,  lambs,  doves,  and  lilies ;  of  broken  columns  and  chap- 
lets.  This  departure  from  the  horrible  for  the  beautiful  is  not  matter  for 
regret.  In  these  symbols  we  get  all  the  religion  of  the  place,  and  Death  is 
robbed  of  half  his  repulsiveness. 

1  William  Ellery  Channing,  the  pastor  of  "Old  Federal  Street,"  Boston,  was  one  of  the  most 
gifted  and  eloquent  men  the  American  pulpit  has  produced.  He  married  the  old  signer's  daugh 
ter,  and  bore  his  name. 


NEWPORT  CEMETERIES. 


401 


PERKY  S   MONUMENT.1 


On  a  grassy  knoll  in  Rhode  Island  Cemetery  the  visitor  sees  the  granite 
obelisk,  erected  by  the  State  to  the  memory  of  the  victorious  young  captain 
who,  at  twenty-seven,  gained  imperishable  renown.  Ardent,  chivalrous,  and 
brave,  Perry  showed  the  true  inspira 
tion  of  battle  in  taking  his  flag  to  a  ship 
still  able  to  fight.  His  laconic  dispatch, 
"  We  have  met  the  enemy,  and  they  are 
ours,"  is  modestly  exultant.  The  mar 
ble  tablet  of  the  monument's  east  face 
has  the  words, 

OLIVER  HAZARD  PERRY. 

At  the  Age  of  Twenty-seven  Years, 

He  Achieved 

The  Victory  of  Lake  Erie, 
September  10,  1813. 

Within  the  neat  iron  fence  that  surrounds  the  monument  are  also  the 
graves  of  Perry's  widow,  Elizabeth  Champlin,  and  of  his  eldest  son,  Chris 
topher  Grant  Perry,  with  the  fresher  one  of  Rev.  Francis  Vinton,  whose  wife 
was  a  daughter  of  the  naval  hero.  From  this  spot  the  bay  and  all  ancient 

Newport  are  visible.  Another 
monument  in  the  cemetery  is  in 
memory  of  General  Isaac  Ingalls 
Stevens,  "  dead  on  the  field  of 
honor." 

A  prevailing  ingredient  of 
Newport  society  in  the  olden 
days  was,  doubtless,  the  Quaker 
element.  As  the  religious  asy 
lum  of  New  England,  it  alike  re 
ceived  Jew  and  Gentile,  Quaker 
and  Anabaptist,  followers  of  the 
Church  of  England  and  of  Rome. 
Its  complexion  at  the  beginning 
of  the  eighteenth  century  might 
be  in  harmony  with  religious 
freedom,  though  little  homoge 
neous  ;  and  although  there  was 
plenty  of  toleration,  its  religious 
character  has  been  vaunted  overmuch.  It  commands  a  passing  thought  that 


OLIVER   HAZARD   PERRY. 


1  The  other  faces  of  Commodore  Perry's  monument  recite  his  age,  birthplace,  etc.  He  was 
born  at  South  Kingston  in  1785,  and  died  at  Port  Spain,  Trinidad,  1819.  According  to  a  resolve 
of  Congress  his  remains  were  conveyed,  in  1826,  in  an  armed  vessel  to  the  United  States. 

26 


402 


THE  NEW  ENGLAND  COAST. 


FRIENDS'  MEETING-HOUSE. 


all  these  human  components  intermingling  and  assimilating  in  the   active 
duties  of  life,  separate  in  death.     Their  burial  must  be  distinct. 

The  Quaker-meeting  has  contributed  to  our  vocabulary  a  synonym  for 

dullness.  Old  En 
gland  and  New  were 
in  accord  in  perse 
cuting  the  sect.  It 
is  related  of  a  num 
ber  under  sentence 
of  banishment  to 
America,  that  sol 
diers  from  the  Tow 
er  carried  them  ou 
board  the  ships,  the 
Friends  refusing  to 
walk  and  the  sailors 
to  hoist  them  on 
board.  In  the  year 
1662  Hannah  Wright  came  from  Long  Island,  several  hundred  miles  to  the 
"bloody  town  of  Boston,"  into  the  court,  and  warned  the  magistrates  to  spill 
no  more  innocent  blood.  They  were  at  first  abashed  by  the  solemn  fervor  of 
their  accuser,  until  Rawson,  the  secretary,  exclaimed,  "  What !  Shall  we  be 
baffled  by  such  a  one  as  this?  Come,  let  us  drink  a  dram." 

The  sufferings  of  the  Friends  in  New  England  were  heightened,  no  doubt, 
by  the  zeal  of  some  to  embrace  martyrdom,  who,  in  giving  way  to  the 
promptings  of  religious  fanaticism,  outraged  public  decency,  and  shamed  the 
name  of  modesty  in  woman.  Deborah  Wilson  went  through  the  streets  of 
Salem  naked  as  she  came  into  the  world,  for  which  she  was  well  whipped. 
Two  other  Quaker  women,  says  Mather,  were  whipped  in  Boston,  "who  came 
as  stark  naked  as  ever  they  were  born  into  our  public  assemblies."  This 
exhibition  was  meant  to  be  a  sign  of  religious  nakedness  in  others;  but  the 
Puritans  preferred  to  consider  it  an  offense  against  good  morals,  and  not  a 
Godiva-like  penance  for  the  general  sin  fulness.1 

The  Society  of  Friends  is  the  youngest  of  the  four  surviving  societies 
which  date  from  the  Reformation,  and  is,  without  doubt,  the  sternest  protest 
against  the  ceremonial  religion  of  Rome.  George  Fox,  who  preached  at 

1  When  appealed  to  by  the  United  Colonies  in  1657  to  punish  Quakers,  Rhode  Island  objected 
that  no  law  of  that  colony  sanctioned  it.  The  president,  Benedict  Arnold,  however,  replied  that 
he  (and  the  other  magistrates)  conceived  the  Quaker  doctrines  tended  to  "very  absolute  cutting 
down  and  overturning  relations  and  civil  government  among  men."  He  urged  as  a  measure  of 
public  policy  that  the  Quakers  should  not  be  molested,  as  they  would  not  remain  where  the  civil 
authority  did  not  persecute  them.  This  has,  in  fact,  been  the  history  of  this  sect  in  New  England. 
— See  Arnold's  letter,  Hutchinson,  vol.  i.,  appendix. 


NEWPORT  CEMETERIES. 


403 


Newport,1  was  the  son  of  a  Leicester 
shire  weaver,  beginning  his  public  as 
sertion  of  religious  sentiments  at  the 
age  of  twenty-two.  The  pillory  some 
times  served  him  for  a  pulpit.  He 
once  preached  with  such  power  to  the 
populace  that  they  rescued  him  "in  a 
tumultuous  manner,"  setting  a  clergy 
man  who  had  been  instrumental  in  his 
punishment  upon  the  same  pillory. 

Pagan  superstition  having  origi 
nated  most  of  the  names  bestowed 
by  custom  on  the  days  and  months, 
the  Friends  ignore  them,  substituting 
in  their  place  "  first  day "  and  "  first 
month,"  "  second  day  "  and  "  second 
month"  for  those  occurring  at  the  be 
ginning  of  our  calendar.  The  Society 
does  not  sanction  appeals  by  its  mem 
bers  to  courts  of  law,  but  refers  dis 
putes  to  arbitration,  a  practice  well 
worthy  imitation. 

George  Fox  mentions  in  his  "  Journal "  his  interview  in  England  with  Si 
mon  Bradstreet  and  Rev.  John  Norton,  the  agents  whom  Massachusetts  had 
sent  over  in  answer  to  the  command  of  Charles  II.  Says  Fox,  "We  had  sev 
eral  discourses  with  them  concerning  their  murdering  our  friends,  but  they 
were  ashamed  to  stand  to  their  bloody  actions.  I  asked  Simon  Bradstreet,  one 
of  the  New  England  magistrates,  whether  he  had  not  an  hand  in  putting  to 
death  these  four  whom  they  hanged  for  being  Quakers?  He  confessed  he  had. 
I  then  demanded  of  him  and  his  associates  then  present  if  they  acknowledged 
themselves  subject  to  the  laws  of  England  ?  They  said  they  did.  I  then 
said  by  what  law  do  you  put  our  friends  to  death?  They  answered,  By  the 
same  law  as  the  Jesuits  were  put  to  death  in  England.  I  then  asked  if  those 
Friends  were  Jesuits  ?  They  said  nay.  Then,  said  I,  ye  have  murdered  them."2 


GEORGE   FOX. 


1  George  Fox  was  in  Rhode  Island  in  1072.     On  arriving  at  Newport,  he  went  to  the  house 
of  Nicholas  Easton,  who  was  then  governor,  and  remained  there  during  his  sojourn.     A  yearly 
meeting  of  all  the  Friends  in  New  England  was  held  while  he  remained  in  Newport. — "George 
Fox  his  Journal,"  London,  1709. 

2  Josselyn  mentions  the  sect:   "Narraganset  Bay,  within  which  bay  is  Rhode  Island,  a  harbor 
for  the  Shunamitish  Brethren,  as  the  saints  errant,  the  Quakers,  who  are  rather  to  be  esteemed 
vagabonds  than  religious  persons."     He  also  attributes  to  them  dealings  in  witchcraft.     \Vhittiev, 
the  Quaker  poet,  has  depicted  in  stirring  verse  the  persecutions  of  this  people.     "Cassandra  South- 
wick  '  is  from  real  life. 


404 


THE  NEW  ENGLAND  COAST. 


The  first  Quakers  came  to  Rhode  Island  in  1656.  Roger  Williams,  in  his 
"  George  Fox  digged  out  of  his  Burrowes,"  shows  that  tolerance  did  not  go  so 
far  with  him  as  the  Quaker  fashion  of  wearing  the  hair  long  and  flowing. 
Speaking  of  one  he  met  who  accosted  him  with  the  salutation,  "Fear  the 
Lord  God,"  Williams  says  he  retorted,  "  What  God  dost  thou  mean — a  ruf 
fian's  God?"  Through  Fox's  preaching  some  of  Cromwell's  soldiers  became 
converted,  and  would  not  fight.  He  lies  in  the  old  London,  burying-ground 
of  Bunhill  Fields,  among  the  Dissenters. 

The  objection  of  the  sect  to  sepulchral  stones  leaves  little  to  be  remarked 
of  the  Quaker  burying-ground  in  Newport.1  Notwithstanding  the  non-re 
sistant  principles  of  the  Friends,  it  stands  in  strong  light  that  Nathaniel 
Greene,  a  Quaker,  and  Oliver  Hazard  Perry,  the  descendant  of  a  Quaker, 
were  conspicuous  figures  in  two  of  our  wars.  Few  innovations  have  ap 
peared  in  the  manners,  customs,  or  dress  of  the  followers  of  George  Fox.2 
Their  broad-brims,  sober  garb,  and  sedate  carriage,  their  "  thee  "  and  "  thou," 
may  still  occasionally  be  seen  and  heard  in  Newport  streets. 

Newport  contains  several  widely  scattered  burial-places,  some  of  them 
hardly  more  in  appearance  than  family  groups  of  graves.  Not  all  exhibit 
the  care  bestowed  upon  such  as  are  more  prominently  before  the  public  eye. 
The  little  Clifton  cemetery,  at  the  head. of  Golden  Hill  Street,  was  in  a 
wretched  plight.  A  crazy  wooden  paling  afforded  little  or  no  protection 

from  intrusion.  But  there  was  no 
incentive  to  linger  among  its  few 
corroded  monuments  and  accumu 
lated  rubbish.  Here  are  buried  the 
Wantons,  of  whom  Edward,  the  an 
cestor  of  the  name  in  Newport,  fled 
from  Scituate,  Massachusetts,  during 
the  Quaker  persecutions. 

When  Washington  was  at  Cam 
bridge,  besieging  Boston,  he  sent 
Charles  Lee  to  look  after  "  those  of 
Rhode  Island"  who  were  still  for 
King  George.  Lee  administered  to 
the  Tories  who  would  take  it  an  oath 
as  whimsical  as  characteristic.  He 
CHARLES  LEE.  knew  tne  fondness  of  these  old  roy 

alists  for  old  wine,  good  dinners,  and  fine  raiment.     They  were  required  to 


1  Stones  giving -simply  the  name  and  date  of  decease  are  now  allowed. 

2  In  1708  M.  de  Subercase  solicited  of  his  Government  the  means  of  attempting  an  enterprise 
ngainst  the  island  of  Rhode  Island.     He  says,  "Cette  isle  est  habite'e  par  des  Coakers  qui  som 
tons  gens  riches." 


NEWPORT  CEMETERIES.  405 

swear  fidelity  to  the  Whig  cause  "by  their  hope  of  present  ease  and  comfort, 
as  well  as  the  dread  hereafter."  Colonel  Wanton  refused  the  oath,  and  was, 
I  presume,  of  those  whom  Lee  had  taken  to  Providence  with  the  threat  of 
forwarding  them  to  the  American  camp. 

Another  isolated  field  of  graves  is  that  usually  called  the  Coddington 
burial-ground,  containing  the  remains  of  Governor  Coddington  and  kindred. 
A  stone  erected  on  the  second  centennial  anniversary  of  the  settlement  of 
Newport,  compresses  in  a  few  lines  the  chief  events  of  his  history: 

"To  the  memory  of  William  Coddington,  Esq.,  that  illustrious  man  who 
first  purchased  this  island  from  the  Narraganset  sachems,  Canonicus  and 
Miantonimo,  for  and  on  account  of  himself  and  seventeen  others,  his  associates 
in  the  purchase  and  settlement.  He  presided  many  years  as  Chief  Magis 
trate  of  the  Island  and  Colony  of  Rhode  Island,  and  died,  much  respected 
and  lamented,  November  1st,  1678,  aged  78  years."1 

Lechford,  in  his  "Plain  Dealing,"  relates  a  circumstance  that  has  caused 
some  inquiry  into  the  ecclesiastical  polity  of  Coddington  and  his  associates. 
"There  lately,"  he  says,  "  they  whipt  one  master  Gorton,  a  grave  man,  for 
denying  their  power,  and  abusing  some  of  their  magistrates  with  uncivill 
tearmes;  the  governor,  master  Coddington,  saying  in  court, 'You  that  are 
for  the  king,  lay  hold  on  Gorton  ;'  and  he  again,  on  the  other  side,  called  forth, 
'All  you  that  are  for  the  king,  lay  hold  on  Coddington.'  Whereupon  Gor 
ton  was  banished  the  island."  Gorton  was  the  founder  of  Warwick,  Rhode 
Island. 

There  is  a  little  inclosure  at  the  upper  end  of  Thames  Street  in  which  is  a 
granite  obelisk  to  the  memory  of  John  Coggeshall,  president  of  the  planta 
tions  under  their  first  patent.  The  name  was  originally  Coxehall.  It  is  the 
same  John  Coggeshall  briefly  met  with  in  the  trial  scene,  to  whom  a  lineal 
descendant  has  raised  this  monument. 

Other  burial-places  may  be  enumerated,  but  that  lying  in  the  shadow  of 
Trinity  Church  is  probably  first  to  challenge  the  attention  of  such  as  seek  to 
read  the  annals  of  the  past  on  memorial  stones.  The  church  steeple,  with 
gilded  crown  on  the  pinnacle — how  these  churchmen  love  the  old  emblems ! 
— was  in  full  view  from  my  window,  slender  and  graceful,  the  gilded  vane 
flashing  in  the  morning  sun,  itself  a  monument  of  its  ancient  flock  below. 

Here  are  the  names  of  Hunter,  of  Kay,  of  Honyman,  and  of  Malbone  :  all 
are  to  be  met  with  in  Newport  streets  or  annals.  The  presence  of  foreign 
armies  on  the  isle  is  emphasized  by  the  burial  of  French  and  British  officers 
in  this  church-yard.  A  few  family  escutcheons  designate  the  ancient  adher 
ence  to  the  dogma  that  all  men  were  not  created  politically  free  and  equal. 
One  of  the  unaccustomed  objects  the  stranger  sees  in  peering  through  the 

1  Here  also  is  the  grave  of  Governor  Henry  Bull,  who  died  in  1693,  and  whose  ancient  stone 
house  is  now  standing  in  Thames,  near  Sherman  street. 


406  THE  NEW  ENGLAND  COAST. 

railings  of  these  old  church -yards  is  the  blazonry  of  which  the  possessors 
were  once  so  proud,  and  which  is  now  carried  with  them  to  their  graves.  In 
cavities  where  leaden  coats  of  arms  have  once  been  imbedded  are  little  ba 
sins  to  catch  the  rain,  where  careless  sparrows  drink  and  take  their  morning 
baths,  twittering  and  chirruping  among  the  homesteads  of  the  dead. 

Stuart,  who  was  fond  of  rambling  through  the  old  grave-yards,  reading 
the  inscriptions,  went  to  Trinity.  He  mentions  his  pew,  and  the  sweetness 
of  the  organ,  the  gift  of  Berkeley.  The  painter  had  a  Scotsman's  inordinate 
fondness  for  snuff,  and  would  be  most  naturally  drawn  with  palette  in  one 
hand  and  a  huge  pinch  of  snuff  in  the  other.  A  resident  of  the  same  street 
once  told  me  that  when  Stuart's  table-cloth  was  shaken  out  at  the  window 
the  whole  street  sneezed.  He  was  a  good  talker  and  listener,  though  crabbed 
and  eccentric  to  a  degree. 

I  venture  to  contribute  to  the  already  portentous  number  the  following 
anecdote  of  Stuart :  Dining  one  day  at  the  house  of  Josiah  Quincy,  his  at 
tention  was  attracted  by  an  engraving  of  West's  "  Battle  of  the  Boyne." 
"Ah !"  said  Stuart,  "  I  was  studying  with  West  when  he  was  at  work  on 
that  picture,  and  had  to  lie  for  hours  on  the  floor,  dressed  in  armor,  for  him 
to  paint  me  in  the  foreground  as  the  Duke  of  Schomberg.  At  last  West  said, 
'  Are  you  dead,  Stuart  ?'  '  Only  half,  sir,'  was  my  reply  ;  and  my  answer  was 
true  ;  for  the  stiffness  of  the  armor  almost  deprived  me  of  sensation.  Then  I 
had  to  sit  for  hours  on  a  horse  belonging  to  King  George,  to  represent  King 
William.  After  the  painting  was  finished,  an  Irishman  who  saw  it  observed 
to  West,  'You  have  the  battle-ground  there  correct  enough,  but  where  is  the 
monument?  I  was  in  Ireland  the  other  day  and  saw  it.'  He  expected  to  see 
a  memorial  of  the  battle  in  a  representation  of  its  commencement."1 

In  the  yard  of  the  Congregational  Church  in  Spring  Street  is  a  slate 
grave-stone  to  the  memory  of  Dr.  Samuel  Hopkins,  settled -as  pastor  of  the 
First  Congregational  Church  of  Newport,  in  1770.  At  first  his  sentiments 
were  so  little  pleasing  to  his  people  that  it  was  voted  by  the  church  not  to 
give  him  a  call;  but  the  doctor  preached  a  farewell  sermon  of  such  beauty 
arid  impressiveness  that  the  vote  was  recalled,  and  Hopkins  consented  to 
remain.  The  salient  points  of  his  character  have  furnished  the  hero  for  Mrs. 
§towe's  "  Minister's  Wooing."  The  First  Congregational  Church  of  New 
port  was  established  in  1720. 

1  Stuart  was  in  Boston  at  the  time  of  the  battle  of  Lexington,  and  managed  to  escape  a  few 
days  after  Bunker  Hill.  His  obituary  in  the  Boston  Daily  Advertiser,  a  very  noble  tribute  from 
one  man  of  genius  to  another,  was  written  by  Allston. 


MOUNT   HOPE. 


CHAPTER  XXVI. 

TO    MOUNT    HOPE,  AXD    BEYOND. 
"La  mattina  al  monte,  e  la  sera  al  fonte." — Italian  Proverb. 

"jl  TOHAMMED,  it  is  said,  on  viewing  the  delicious  and  alluring  situation  of 
-**-*-  Damascus,  would  not  enter  that  city,  but  turned  away  with  the  excla 
mation,  "  There  is  but  one  paradise  for  man,  and  I  am  determined  to  have 
mine  in  the  other  world." 

I  started  on  my  morning  walk  up  the  island  just  as  the  clocks  were  strik 
ing  eight.  Spring  comes  in  Newport  very  early  and  very  verdant.  The 
bloom  of  orchard  and  of  lilac  greeted  me.  At  every  step  I  crushed  the  per 
fume  out  of  violets  blossoming  in  the  strip  of  greensward  that  bordered  the 
broad  band  of  road.  I  often  looked  back  upon  the  fortunate  city,  mounting 
the  green  slopes  and  scattering  itself  among  the  quiet  fields.  The  last  point 
of  land  was  visible  even  down  to  Point  Judith.  A  faint  roll  of  drums  reached 
me  from  the  fort.  Good-bye  to  a  pleasant  place !  I  felt,  in  turning  away, 
that  if  Damascus  had  been  like  Newport,  I  should  have  entered  Damascus. 

Distant  about  a  mile  from  Newport  is  "Tonomy,"  or  more  properly 
Miantonimo  Hill.  It  is  the  highest  elevation  in  the  southern  part  of  the  isl 
and,  receiving  its  name  as  the  seat  of  a  sachem.  Some  remains  of  field-works 
are  seen  on  its  slopes.1 


1  It  was  the  fortress  of  the  British  left  wing.     Two  large  and  elegant  country  houses  at  its 
base,  included  within  the  lines,  were  occupied  by  the  officers. 


408 


THE  NEW  ENGLAND  COAST. 


Near  the  southern  foot  of  Miantonimo  Hill  is  the  old  Malbone  place,  the 
site  of  a  colonial  mansion  celebrated  in  its  day  as  the  finest  in  Newport.  It 
was  destroyed  by  fire  rather  more  than  a  century  ago.  Tradition  avers  that 
Colonel  Godfrey  Malbone,  seeing  his  house  in  flames,  ordered  the  table  re 
moved  to  the  lawn,  and  coolly  finished  his  dinner  there.  It  was  a  two-story 
stone-built  house,  which  had  cost  the  owner  a  hundred  thousand  dollars. 

Many  are  the  dark,  vague,  and  mysterious  hints  let  fall  from  time  to  time 

relative  to  the  life 
of  Malbone.  As  a 
merchant  his  ven 
tures  are  said  to 
have  been  lawless 
even  for  his  law 
less  age.  His  cor 
sairs  preyed  upon 
the  commerce  of 
Frenchman  or 
Spaniard  without 
regard  for  treaties. 
Rum  and  slaves 
were  the  commod 
ities  in  which  the 
Newport  of  his 
time  trafficked 
largely.  Smug 
gling  was  hardly 
deemed  dishonor 
able  in  a  mer 
chant.  As  con 
firming  this  easy 
condition  of  com 
mercial  virtue,  a 
writer  mentions 
having  seen  in 
Malbone's  garden 
THE  GLEN-  the  entrance  of 

one  of  those  subterranean  passages  leading  to  the  shore  I  have  so  often  un 
earthed. 

During  the  French  war  of  George  II.,  Newport,  from  its  beginning  to  the 
year  1744,  had  armed  and  sent  to  sea  more  than  a  score  of  privateers.  It 
was  called  the  nursery -of  corsairs.  It  was  also  called  rich  ;  and  the  French, 
in  planning  its  capture,  facilitated  by  the  information  of  a  resident  French 
merchant,  a  spy,  calculated  on  levying  a  heavy  contribution.  "Perhaps  we 


TO  MOUNT  HOPE,  AND   BEYOND. 


409 


had  better  burn  it,  as  a  pernicious  hole,  from  the  number  of  privateers  there 
fitted  out,  as  dangerous  in  peace  as  in  war;  being  a  sort  of  freebooter,  who 
confiscates  d  tord  et  d  travers"  say  they.  These  harsh  expressions  sound 
strangely  unfamiliar  when  contrasted  with  French  panegyric  of  the  next  gen 
eration. 

Edward  G.  Malbone,  a  natural  son,  belonged  to  a  collateral  branch  of  the 
family.1  Newport  was  the  birthplace  of  this  exquisite  miniature  painter  and 
most  refined  of  men.  This  refinement 
appears  in  his  works,  which  are  full  of 
artistic  grace  and  dainty  delicacy.  Lit 
tle  of  his  life  was  passed  here,  though 
that  little  is  much  prized  by  all  who 
know  his  worth  as  a  man.  Allston  and 
Malbone  are  said  to  have  worked  to 
gether  in  Newport  as  pupils  of  Samuel 
King,  beginning  thus  the  friendship  that 
so  long  subsisted  between  them. 

About  midway  of  the  island,  on  the 
eastern  shore,  is 
The  Glen,  once 
more  frequented 
than  at  present. 
A  line  carried 
across  the  island 
from  this  point 
would  pass  near 
the  old  farmstead, 
which  was  the 
quarters  of  the 
British  general, 
Prescott.  It  is 
on  the  west  road 
leading  by  the 
most  direct  route 
from  Newport  to 
Bristol  Ferry. 

Colonel  Barton,  whose  station  was  at  Tiverton,  conceived  the  idea  of  re 
leasing  General  Lee,  then  a  prisoner,  by  securing  General  Prescott.  Having 
matured  his  plans,  he  crossed  over  to  Warwick  Neck,  where  he  was  detained 
two  days  by  a  violent  storm.  With  him  were  forty  volunteers,  who  manned 
five  whale-boats.  The  enemy  were  then  in  possession  of  both  Canonical  and 


A   RHODE   ISLAND   WINDMILL. 


1  He  was  the  son  of  John,  the  son  of  Godfrey  Malbone. 


410 


THE  NEW  ENGLAND  COAST. 


WILLIAM   BARTON. 


Prudence  islands,  with  some  shipping  lying  under  the  little  isle,  called  Hope, 
which  is  between  Prudence  and  the  western  shore  of  the  bay. 

On  the  night  of  the  9th  of  July,  1777,  every  thing  being  favorable,  Barton 
informed  his  men  for  the  first  time  where  they  were  going.  His  party  em 
barked  in  their  boats,  rowing  between 
Patience  and  Prudence  in  order  to  elude 
the  enemy's  guard-boats.  Meeting  with 
no  obstacle,  they  coasted  the  west  shore 
of  Prudence,  passed  around  the  southern 
end,  and  landed  on  Rhode  Island.  They 
then  pushed  on  for  Overing's  house, 
where  they  knew  General  Prescott  was 
to  be  found. 

The  sentinel  on  duty  was  quickly 
seized  and  disarmed,  and  the  house  sur 
rounded.  On  entering  General  Preseott's 
chamber,  Barton  saw  him  rising  from  his 
bed. 

"Are  you  General  Prescott?" 
"  Yes,  sir." 

"  Then  you  are  my  prisoner." 
The  general  was  allowed  to  half  dress  himself,  and  was  then  conducted  to 
the  boats.  His  aid,  Major  Barrington,  had  also  been  taken.  Arrived  at  the 
shore,  General  Prescott  finished  his  toilet  in  the  open  air.  Soon  after  leaving 
the  island  the  alarm  was  given  in  the  British  camp.  "  Sir,"  said  Prescott  to 
Barton,  as  they  stepped  ashore  at  Warwick  Neck,  "  you  have  made  a  d — d 
bold  push  to-night."  The  Americans  had  returned  in  just  six  and  a  half 
hours  from  the  time  they  set  out. 

While  on  his  way  to  the  American 
head  -  quarters,  Prescott  was  horse 
whipped  by  an  innkeeper  whom  he 
insulted.  The  situation  of  the  house 
from  which  he  was  carried  off  is  eas 
ily  distinguished  by  the  pond  before 
it,  whose  overflow  falls  in  a  miniature 
cascade  into  the  road.  Very  little, 
if  any,  of  the  original  building  is  re 
maining. 

Talbot's  achievement  the  next 
year  was  in  carrying  off  a  British 
armed  vessel,  the  Pigvt,  that  guard 
ed  Seconnet  Passage  and  the  com 
munication  between  the  islands  and  SILAS  TALBOT. 


TO  MOUNT  HOPE,  AND  BEYOND. 


411 


the  main-land.  With  a  few  troops  from  the  camp  at  Providence  he  manned 
a  small  vessel  and  set  sail.  On  coming  near  the  Piyot,  Talbot  caused  his 
vessel  to  drift  down  upon  her,  when  he  carried  her  by  boarding.  He  took  his 
prize  successfully  into  Stonington. 

The  absence  of  forest-trees  on  the  island  gives  it  a  general  resemblance  to 
the  rolling  prairie  of  the  West.  The  slopes  are  gracefully  rounded  as  the 
Vermont  hills — ground-swells,  over  which  the  road  rises  or  descends  in  reg 
ular  irregularity.  Over  this  road  that  discarded  vehicle,  the  stage-coach,  once 
rolled  and  lurched,  and  was  more  wondered  at  than  the  train  that  now  rat 
tles  along  under  the  hills  by  the  shore. 


PRESCOTT'S  HEAD-QUARTERS. 

It  is  said  that  Dexter  Brown,  "an  enterprising  man, "set  up  a  four-horse 
stage-coach  between  Boston  and  Providence  as  early  as  1772.  When  "  well 
regulated,"  it  left  Providence  every  Monday,  and  arrived  in  Boston  on  Tues 
day  night;  returning,  it  left  Boston  on  Thursday,  reaching  Providence  on 
Friday  night.  The  coach  was  chiefly  patronized  by  people  who  visited  New 
port  for  their  health.  On  a  long  route,  the  change  from  one  coach  into  an 
other,  equally  cramped,  might  not  inaptly  be  said  to  resemble  an  exchange 
of  prisoners. 

All  travelers  here  have  remarked  on  the  productiveness  of  Rhode  Island. 
Its  dairies  and  its  poultry  have  always  been  celebrated.  Orchards  bursting 
with  blossoms  somewhat  relieved  the  bare  aspect  of  the  hills.  Fields  of 
spinach  and  of  clover  varied  the  coloring  of  the  pastures,  which  were  shaded 
off  on  cool  slopes  into  the  dark  green  of  Kentucky  blue -grass.  Groups  of 


412  THE  NEW  ENGLAND  COAST. 

brown  hay-ricks,  left  from  the  winter's  store,  stood  impaled  in  barn-yards. 

Flocks  of  geese  waddled  by  the  roadside.  Ox-teams,  market-men,  boys  with 

droves  of  pigs,  made  the  whole 
way  a  pastoral.  On  lifting  the 
eye  from  the  yellow  band  of 
road  a  windmill  would  be  seen 
with  its  long  arms  beating  the 
air.  I  liked  to  walk  through 
the  green  lanes  that  led  up  to 
them,  and  hold  brief  chat  with 
the  boy  or  maid  of  the  mill.  I 
shall  never  look  at  one  without 
Qi 


AGRICULTURAL  PROSPERITY. 


streams  and  water-power  is  thus 
supplied  by  air  -  currents  and 
wind-power.  It  is  an  ill  Avind 
indeed  that  blows  nobody  good 
on  Rhode  Island. 

I  have  said  nothing  of  the  fish-market  of  the  island,  and  that  market  is  of 
course  centred  in  Newport.  Dr.  Dwight  enumerates  twenty-six  different 
species,  to  be  found  in  their  season.  Sheep's-head,  considered  superior  to  tur- 
bot,  were  sometimes  caught  off  Hanging  Rocks.  Blaekfish  (tautog)  and  scup, 
or  scuppaug,  are  much  esteemed.  When  I  was  last  on  the  island,  the  fish 
ermen  were  emptying  their  seines  of  the  scup,  which  were  so  plenty  as  to  be 
almost  valueless,  a  string  of  fine  fish,  ready  dressed,  bringing  only  twelve 
cents.  The  flesh  of  a  tautog  is  very  firm,  and  he  will  live  a  long  time  out  of 
water.  The  boats  used  here  by  fishermen  have  the  mast  well  forward,  in  the 
manner  known  to  experts  along  shore  as  the  "Newport  rig."  Formerly  they 
used  "  pinkeys,"  or  Chebacco  boats,  so  called  from  a  famous  fishing  precinct 
of  Essex  County,  Massachusetts. 

The  quartz  imbedded  in  the  stone  makes  the  roadside  walls  appear  as  if 
splashed  with  whitewash.  I  saw  few  ledges  from  Newport  to  Lawton's  Val 
ley.  The  stones  brought  up  by  the  plow  were  all  small  and  flat,  but  at  the 
upper  end  of  the  island  I  observed  they  were  the  round  masses  or  pebbles 
met  with  on  the  opposite  main-land.  There  is  also  on  the  western  shore  a  coal 
vein  of  inferior  quality.  The  dust  from  it  mingles  with  that  of  .the  road  be 
fore  you  arrive  at  Bristol  ferry. 

I  made  a  brief  halt  at  the  old  grass-grown  earth-work  on  the  crest  of  the 
hill  overlooking  Lawton's  Valley.  No  wayfarer  should  lose  the  rare  views 
to  be  had  here.  The  fort  forms  a  throne  from  which  the  Queen  of  Aquid- 
neck,  a  voluptuous  rather  than  virgin  princess,  a  Cleopatra  rather  than  an 
Elizabeth,  might  behold  her  empire.  At  the  foot  of  the  hill  is  the  remark- 


TO  MOUNT  HOPE,  AND  BEYOND. 


413 


able  vale  intersecting  the  island,  sprinkled  with  cottages  among  orchards; 
on  the  left,  part  of  Canonical  and  all  of  Prudence  lie  outstretched  alono-  the 
sunny  bay;  farther  north  the  steeples  of  Bristol  distinctly,  and  of  Providence 
dimly,  are  seen ;  to  the  right  Mount  Hope,  Tiverton,  and  perhaps  a  faint 
spectral  chimney  or  two  at  Fall  River.  The  long  dark  line  on  the  water 
from  the  island  to  Tiverton  is  the  stone  bridge.1 

Turning  to  the  southward  is  the  battle-field  of  1778,  where  Sullivan  and 
Greene  fought  with  Pigot  and  Prescott,  and  where  Lafayette,  though  he  had 
ridden  from  Boston  in  six  hours,  was  not.  This  campaign,  begun  so  auspi 
ciously,  terminated  ingloriously.  New  England  had  been  aroused  to  arms. 
Men  of  all  ranks  of  society  shouldered  their  firelocks  and  marched.  Volun 
teers  from  Xewburyport,  a  company  of  the  first  merchants  of  Salem,  artillery 
and  infantry  corps  from  Boston,  thronged  the  roads  to  Sullivan's  camp.  It 
wus  a  good  and  salutary  lesson  to  the  Americans,  not  to  put  their  faith  in 
French  appearances.2 


FROM   BUTTS  S   HILL,  LOOKING   NOliTH. 

When  Coddington  and  his  associates  determined  to  remove  from  Massa 
chusetts,  they  meant  to  settle  upon  Long  Island  or  in  Delaware  Bay.  While 
their  vessel  was  making  the  dangerous  passage  around  Cape  Cod  without 
them,  they  came  by  land  to  Providence,  where  Mr.  Williams  courteously  en 
tertained  and  afterward  influenced  them  to  settle  upon  the  Isle  of  Aquidneck. 
Plymouth  having  disclaimed  jurisdiction  over  it,  and  promised  to  look  upon 
and  assist  them  as  loving  neighbors,  in  March,  1637-'38,  the  exiles  organized 
their  political  community  upon  the  northern  end  of  the  island.  Sir  H.Vane 
and  Roger  Williams  were  instrumental  in  procuring  Rhode  Island  from  the 
Karraganset  chieftains,  Miantonimo  and  Canonicus.  By  the  next  spring  their 

1  The  first  bridge  spanning  what  was  known  as  Rowland's  Ferry  was  completed  in  1705.     It 
was  of  wood,  destroyed  and  swept  to  sea  by  a  storm ;  rebuilt,  and  again  destroyed  by  worms.    The 
present  stone  structure  was  built  in  1809-'10,  and,  though  injured  by  the  gale  of  1815,  stands  firm. 

2  The  battle  was  fought  in  the  valley  below  Quaker,  sometimes  called  Meeting-house,  Hill.    Sul 
livan  commanded  in  chief,  though  Greene  is  entitled  to  a  large  share  of  the  credit  of  repulsing  the 
British  attack.     It  was  a  well-fought  action.     Pigot,  by  British  accounts,  had  six  thousand  regular 
troops.     Lafayette  was  mad  as  a  March  hare  at  their  fighting  without  him. 


414 


THE  NEW  ENGLAND  COAST. 


QUAKER   HILL  FKOM   BUTTS' S   HILL,  LOOKING   SOUTH. 

numbers  were  so  much  augmented  that  some  of  the  settlers  removed  to  the 
southern  or  western  shores.  The  island  was  divided  into  two  townships — 
— Portsmouth,  which  now  engrosses  its  upper  half,  and  Newport.  In  1644 
they  named  it  the  Isle  of  Rhodes,  which  was  merely  exchanging  one  pagan 
name  for  another.1 

Mount  Hope  is  scarcely  more  than  two  hundred  feet  high,  though  in  its 
isolation  it  looks  higher.  It  is  comtnandingly  situated  on  a  point  of  land  on 
the  eastern  shore  of  Bristol  Neck,  giving  its  name  to  a  broad  expanse  of  wa 
ter  that  receives  Taunton  River  in  its  course  to  the  sea.  On  the  eastern  side 
the  hill  is  precipitous,  vastly  more  so  than  Horse  Neck,  down  which  the  val 
iant  Putnam  urged  his  steed  when  pursued  by  British  dragoons.  Down  this 
declivity  Philip  is  said  to  have  rolled  like  a  cask  when  surprised  by  white 
enemies.  Here,  on  the  shores  of  Taunton  River,  is  the  scene  of  those  hand-to- 
hand  encounters  between  settler  and  savage  in  which  the  old  historians  are 
wont  to  mix  up  gunpowder  with  religion  so  perplexedly.  In  those  days  the 
fall  of  a  red  chieftain  on  the  hunting-grounds  of  his  fathers  was  hailed  as  a 


BATTLE-GROUND   OF  AUGUST  29,  1778. 


1  Lechford,  writing  between  1637  and  1641,  says:  "At  the  island  called  Aquedney  are  about 
two  hundred  families.  There  was  a  church  where  one  Master  Clark  was  elder :  the  place  where 
the  church  was  is  called  Newport,  but  that  church,'  I  hear,  is  now  dissolved.  At  the  other  end  of 
the  island  there  is  another  town  called  Portsmouth,  but  no  church.  Those  of  the  island  have  a 
pretended  civil  government  of  their  own  erection  without  the  king's  patent." 


TO  MOUNT  HOPE,  AND  BEYOND. 


415 


special  providence.     Mount  Hope  was  the  sequel  of  Samoset's  "Welcome, 
Englishmen." 

By  the  river,  in  the  forked  branches  of  blasted  sycamores,  the  fish-hawk 
builds  and  broods.  Their  nests  are  made  of  dried  eel-grass  from  the  shore 
interwoven^  with  twigs.  The  shrill  scream  of  the  female  at  my  coming  was 
answered  by  the  cry  of  the  male,  who  left  his  fishing  out  on  the  river  at  the 
first  signal  of  distress.  An  old  traveler  says  this  bird  sometimes  seems  to  lie 
expanded  on  the  water,  he  hovers  so  close  to  it.  Having  by  some  attractive 
power  drawn  the  fish  within  his  reach,  he  darts  suddenly  upon  them.  The 
charm  he  makes  use  of  is  supposed  to  be  an  oil  contained  in  a  small  bag  in 
the  body.  In  defense  of  his  mate  and  her  young  the  bird  seems  to  forget 
fear. 

After  many  agreeable  surprises  already  encountered,  I  was  unprepared 
for  what  I  saw  from  the  summit  of  Mount  Hope.  I  felt  it  was  good  to  be 
there.  Every  town  in  Rhode  Island 
is  said  to  be  visible.  All  the  islands 
dispersed  about  the  bay  are  revealed 
at  a  glance.  Glimmering  in  the  dis 
tance  was  Providence.  On  the  farther 
shore  of  Mount  Hope  Bay,  Fall  River 
appeared  niched  in  the  sheer  side  of  a 
granite  ledge.  Here  were  Warren  and 
Bristol,  there  Warwick;  and,  far  down 
the  greater  bay,  Newport  was  swathed 
in  a  hazy  cloud.  I  had  made  a  long 
walk,  yet  felt  no  fatigue,  on  the  top  of 
Mount  Hope. 

Near  the  brow  of  the  hill  Philip  fixed 
his  wigwam  and  held  his  dusky  court. 
He  has  had  Irving  for  his  biographer, 
Southey  for  his  bard,  and  Forrest  for  his 
ideal  representative.  In  his  own  time  he 
was  the  public  enemy  whom  any  should 
slay ;  in  ours  he  is  considered  as  a  mar 
tyr  to  the  idea  of  liberty  —  his  idea  of  liberty  not  differing  from  that  of 
Tell  and  Toussaint,  whom  we  call  heroes. 

Philip  did  not  comprehend  the  religion  of  the  whites,  but  as  he  under 
stood  their  policy  he  naturally  distrusted  their  faith.  When  the  prophet 
Eliot  preached  to  him,  he  went  up  to  that  good  man,  and,  pulling  off  a  but 
ton  from  his  doublet,  said  he  valued  his  discourse  as  little  as  the  piece  of 
brass — "  the  monster  !"  exclaims  pious  Cotton  Mather. 

Such  hills  as  Mount  Hope  were  the  settlers'  sun-dials,  when  clocks  and 
watches  were  luxuries  known  only  to  the  wealthy  few.  The  crest  is  a  green 


KING   PHILIP,  FROM   AN   OLD   PRINT. 


416 


THE  NEW  ENGLAND  COAST. 


nipple,  having  quartz  cropping  out  everywhere ;  in  fact,  the  basis  of  the  hill 
is  nearly  a  solid  mass  of  quartz.  Between  the  site  of  Philip's  wigwam  and 
the  shore,  where  the  escarpment  is  fifty  feet,  is  a  natural  excavation,  five  or 
six  feet  from  the  ground,  called  "Philip's  Throne."  A  small  grass-plot  is  be 
fore  it,  and  at  its  foot  trickles  a  never -failing  spring  of  water,  known  as 
"Philip's  Spring." 

The  manner  of  Philip's  death,  as  given  in  Church's  history,  is  considered 
authentic.  Church's  party  crossed  the  ferry,  and  reached  Mount  Hope  about 
midnight.  Detachments  were  placed  in  ambush  at  all  the  avenues  of  escape. 
Captain  Gold  ing,  with  a  number  of  picked  men  and  a  guide,  was  ordered  to 
assault  the  stronghold  by  break  of  day.  One  of  Philip's  Indians  having 
showed  himself,  Golding  fired  a  volley  into  the  camp.  The  Indians  then 
fled  to  the  neighboring  swamp,  Philip  the  foremost.  Having  gained  the 
shore,  he  ran  directly  upon  Church's  ambuscade.  An  Englishman  snapped 
his  gun  at  him  without  effect,  when  his  companion,  one  of  Church's  Indian 
soldiers,  sent  a  bullet  through  the  heart  of  the  chief.  He  fell  on  his  face  in 
the  mud  and  water,  with  his  gun  under  him.  After  the  fight  was  over, 
Church  ordered  the  body  to  be  quartered  and  decapitated.  The  executioner 
was  also  an  Indian,  and  before  he  struck  the  body  made  a  short  speech  to  it. 
Philip's  head  was  taken  to  Plymouth  in  triumph,  where,  arriving  on  the  very 
day  the  church  was  keeping  a  solemn  thanksgiving,  in  the  words  of  Mather, 
"  God  sent  'em  in  the  head  of  a  leviathan  for  a  thanksgiving  feast." 

I  made  the  ascent  of  Mount  Hope  from  the  south,  where  it  is  gradual;  but 
on  the  west,  where  I  descended,  I  found  it  abrupt,  and  covered  with  a  grove 
of  oak-trees  sprinkled  with  stones  among  fern.  With  the  exception  of  a  few 
tumble-down  stone  walls  that  cross  it,  and  now  and  then  a  cow  quietly  crop 
ping  the  herbage,  it  is  as  wild  as  when  it  was  the  eyrie  of  the  proud-spirited 
chieftain,  "  the  Last  of  the  Wampanoags." 

At  Bristol  the  railway  will  set  you  down  opposite  to  Fall  River,  or  by 

returning  to  Bristol  ferry  you  may 
take,  on  the  Rhode  Island  side,  the 
rail  for  Dighton  and  its  sculptured 
rock.  This  rock,  which  has  puzzled 
so  many  learned  brains  both  of  the 
Old  World  and  the  New,  lies  near 
the  eastern  shore  of  Taunton  River, 
opposite  Dighton  wharves.1 

I  wanted  two  things  in  Dighton 
— direction  to  the  rock,  and  a  skiff  to 
An  ancient  builder  of  boats,  very  tall  and  very  lank, 


INSCRIPTION  ON  DIGHTON  ROCK. 


cross  the  river  to  it. 


1  To  be  exact,  the  shores  adjacent  to  the  rock  are  in  the  town  of  Berkeley,  formerly  part  of 
Dighton. 


TO  MOUNT  HOPE,  AND   BEYOND.  417 

having  his  adze  in  his  hand  and  his  admeasurements  chalked  on  the  toes  of 
his  boots,  supplied  me  with  both. 

"What  on  airth  do  you  want  to  look  at  that  rock  for?"  he  expostulated 
rather  than  questioned.  "I'd  as  lief  look  at  the  side  of  that  house,"  pointing 
to  his  work-shop. 

"You  do  not  seem  to  value  your  archa3ological  remains  overmuch,"  I  sub 
mitted. 

"Bless  you,  I  knew  a  gal  born  and  brought  up  right  in  sight  of  that  air 
rock,  who  got  married  and  went  to  Baltimore  to  live,  without  ever  having  sot 
eyes  on  it.  When  she  had  staid  there  a  spell  she  heard  so  much  about  Digh- 
ton  Rock,  she  came  all  the  way  back  a  purpose  to  see  it.  -Z^e-male  curiosity, 
you  see,  sir." 

The  river  is  half  a  mile  broad  at  Dighton,  with  low,  uninteresting  shores. 
The  "  Writing  Rock,"  a  large  boulder  of  tine-grained  greenstone,  is  submerged 
either  wholly  or  in  part  by  the  tidal  flow,  but  when  uncovered  presents  a 
smooth  face,  slightly  inclined  toward  the  open  river.  When  so  close  as  to  lay 
hold  of  it,  you  are  aware  of  faint  impressions  on  its  surface,  yet  these  have  be 
come  so  nearly  effaced  by  the  action  of  the  tides  and  the  chafing  of  drift  ice 
as  to  be  fragmentary,  and  therefore  disappointing.  As  is  usual,  the  action  of 
the  salt  air  has  turned  this,  as  other  rocks  by  the  shores,  to  a  dusky  red  color. 
Seventy  years  ago  the  characters  or  lines  traced  on  the  rock  were  by  actual 
measurement  an  inch  in  breadth  by  half  an  inch  in  depth,  and  distinct  enough 
to  attract  attention  from  the  decks  of  passing  vessels. 

The  rock  is  first  mentioned,  says  Schoolcraft,  in  a  sermon  of  Dr.  Danforth, 
of  1680.  The  river  had  then  been  frequented  by  white  men  for  sixty  years. 
It  is  next  alluded  to  in  the  dedication  of  a  sermon  to  Sir  H.  Ashurst  by  Cotton 
Mather,  in  these  words:  "Among  the  other  curiosities  of  New  England  one 
is  that  of  a  mighty  rock,  on  a  perpendicular  side  whereof,  by  a  river  which  at 
high  tide  covers  part  of  it,  there  are  very  deeply  engraved,  no  man  alive 
knows  how  or  when,  about  half  a  score  lines  near  ten  foot  long  and  a  foot 
and  a  half  broad,  filled  with  strange  characters,  which  would  suggest  as  odd 
thoughts  about  them  that  were  here  before  us  as  there  are  odd  shapes  in  that 
elaborate  monument,  whereof  you  shall  see  the  first  line  transcribed  here." 

In  the  "Philosophical  Transactions"  of  the  Royal  Society  of  London,  cov 
ering  a  period  from  1700  to  1720,  are  several  communications  from  Cotton 
Mather,  one  of  which  (part  iv.,  p.  112)  is  as  follows: 

"At  Taunton,  by  the  side  of  a  tiding  river,  part  in,  part  out  of  the  river, 
is  a  large  Rock ;  on  the  perpendicular  side  of  which,  next  to  the  Stream,  are 
seven  or  eight  lines,  about  seven  or  eight  foot  long,  and  about  a  foot  wide, 
each  of  them  ingraven  with  unaccountable  characters,  not  like  any  known 
character."1 

1  A  copy  of  the  inscription,  made  by  Professor  Sewall,  is  deposited  in  the  Museum  at  Cambridge. 

27 


418  THE  NEW  ENGLAND   COAST. 

Schoolcraft  believed  the  work  to  have  been  performed  by  Indians.  Wash- 
ino-ton,  who  had  some  knowledge  of  their  hieroglyphics,  was  of  this  opinion. 
Dr.  Belknap  asserts  that  they  were  acquainted  with  sculpture,  and  also  in 
stances  their  descriptive  drawings  on  the  bark  of  trees.  Sculptured  rocks, 
of  which  the  origin  is  unknown,  have  been  found  in  other  locations  in  the 
United  States.  Since  the  unsettling  of  Norse  traditions,  the  characters  on 
Dighton  Rock  are  generally  admitted  to  be  of  Indian  creation ;  but  if  the 
work  of  white  men,  it  would  strengthen  the  theory  of  Verazzani's  presence 
in  these  waters. 

Another  link  of  the  supposed  discovery  by  Northmen  was  the  skeleton 
exhumed  about  1834  at  Fall  River.  It  was  found  in  a  sitting  posture,  having 
a  plate  of  brass  upon  its  breast,  with  arrow-heads  of  the  same  metal  lying 
near,  thin,  flat,  and  of  triangular  shape.  The  arrows  had  been  contained  within 
a  quiver  of  bark,  that  fell  in  pieces  when  exposed  to  the  air.  The  most  re 
markable  thing  about  the  remains  was  a  belt  encircling  the  body,  composed 
of  brass  tubes  four  and  a  half  inches  in  length,  the  width  of  the  belt,  and  placed 
close  together  longitudinally.  The  breastplate,  belt,  and  arrow-heads  were 
considered  so  many  evidences  that  the  skeleton  was  that  of  some  Scandinavian 
who  had  died  and  been  buried  here  by  the  natives. 

An  antiquary  would  of  course  prize  a  dead  Scandinavian  more  than  many 
living  ones.  These  mouldering  bones  and  corroded  trinkets  were  not,  how 
ever,  the  key  to  Dighton  Rock.  The  mode  of  sepulture  was  that  practiced 
by  the  natives  of  this  continent.  In  Archer's  account  of  Gosnold's  voyage  he 
speaks  of  the  Indians  on  the  south  of  Cape  Cod  as  follows: 

"This  day  there  came  unto  the  ship's  side  divers  canoes,  the  Indians  ap 
pareled  as  aforesaid,  with  tobacco  and  pipes  steeled  with  copper,  skins,  arti 
ficial  strings,  and  other  trifles,  to  barter;  one  had  hanging  about  his  neck  a 
plate  of  rich  copper,  in  length  a  foot,  in  breadth  half  a  foot,  for  a  breastplate." 

John  Brereton,  of  the  same  voyage,  tells  us  more  of  the  Indians  of  the 
Elizabeth  Islands :  "  They  have  also  great  store  of  copper,  some  very  red,  and 
some  of  a  paler  color;  none  of  them  but  have  chains,  ear-rings,  or  collars  of 
this  metal:  they  had  some  of  their  arrows  herewith,  much  like  our  broad 
arrow-heads,  very  workmanly  made.  Their  chains  are  many  hollow  pieces 
cemented  together,  each  piece  of  the  bigness  of  one  of  our  reeds,  a  finger  in 
length,  ten  or  twelve  of  them  together  on  a  string,  which  they  wear  about 
their  necks ;  their  collars  they  wear  about  their  bodies  like  bandeliers,  a  hand 
ful  broad,  all  hollow  pieces  like  the  other,  but  somewhat  shorter,  four  hun 
dred  pieces  in  a  collar,  very  fine  and  evenly  set  together."  Were  this  evi- 


There  is  another  copy,  by  James  Winthrop;  see  plate  in  vol.  iii.,  "Memoir  American  Academy," 
and  description  of  method  of  taking  it,  vol.  ii.,  part  ii.,  p.  126.  Many  others  have  been  taken, 
more  or  less  imperfect;  the  best  one  recollected  is  in  the  hall  of  the  Antiquarian  Society, Worcester, 
Massachusetts. 


TO  MOUNT  HOPE,  AND  BEYOND. 


419 


dence  less  positive,  we  know  from  Champlain  that  the  Indians  would  never 
have  permitted  the  body  of  a  stranger  to  remain  buried  longer  than  was 
necessary  to  disinter  and  despoil  it.  Verazzani's  letter  mentions  the  posses 
sion  of  copper  trinkets  by  the  Indians. 

About  two  miles  and  a  half  from  Taunton  Green  is  the  Leonard  Forge, 
the  oldest  in  America.  The  spot  is  exceedingly  picturesque.  The  brook, 
overhung  by  trees,  which  of  yore  turned  the  mill-wheel,  glides  beneath  a 
rustic  bridge  ere  it  tumbles  over  the  dam  and  hurries  on  to  meet  the  river. 
James  and  Henry  Leonard  built  the  forge  in  1652. 

Near  the  spot  is  the  site  of  the  dwelling  they  occupied,  one  of  the  dis 
tinctive  old  struc 
tures  of  its  day. 
Philip  lived  in  am 
ity  with  the  Leon 
ards,  who  made  for 
him  spear  and  ar 
row  heads  when 
he  came  to  hunt  at 
the  Fowling  Pond, 
not  far  from  the 
forge,  where  he  had 
a  hunting  -  lodge. 
When  he  had  re 
solved  to  strike 
the  English,  it  is 

OLD   LEONAKD   HOUSE,  KAI'MIA.M. 

said  he  gave  strict 

orders  not  to  hurt  those  Leonards,  his  good  friends  of  the  forge.     Tradition 

has  it  that  his  head  was  afterward  kept  in  the  house  some  days. 

My  pilgrimage  among  the  haunts  of  the  Narragansets  and  Wampanoags 
of  old  fame  extended  no  farther.  Setting  my  face  again  toward  the  sea,  when 
on  board  one  of  those  floating  hotels  that  ply  between  Fall  River  and  New 
York,  I  thought  of  the  prediction  I  had  cut  from  the  Boston  Daily  Adver 
tiser  of  just  half  a  century  ago:  "We  believe  the  time  will  not  be  far  distant 
when  a  steamboat  will  be  provided  to  run  regularly  between  New  York  and 
Taunton  River,  to  come  to  Fall  River  and  Dighton,  and  perhaps  to  the 
wharves  in  Taunton,  a  mile  below  the  village.  This  route  from  New  York 
to  Boston  would  in  some  respects  be  preferable  to  that  through  Providence." 


NEW   LONDON   IN   1813. 


CHAPTER  XXVII. 

NEW   LONDON    AND    NORWICH. 

"It  seems  that  you  take  pleasure  in  these  walks,  sir." — MASSINGER. 

NEW  LONDON  is  a  city  hiding  within  a  river,  three  miles  from  its  meet 
ing  with  the  waters  of  Long  Island  Sound.  On  the  farthest  seaward 
point  of  the  western  shore  is  a  light-house.  Before,  and  yet  a  little  eastward 
of  the  river's  mouth,  is  an  island  about  nine  miles  long  screening  it  from  the 
full  power  of  Atlantic  storms,  and  forming,  with  Watch  Hill,1  the  prolongation 
of  the  broken  line  of  land  stretch  in  o-  out  into  the  Sound  from  the  northern 

£3 

limb  of  the  Long  Island  shore.  Through  this  barrier,  thrown  across  the  en 
trance  to  the  Sound,  all  vessels  must  pass.  The  island  is  Fisher's  Island.  It 
seems  placed  on  purpose  to  turn  into  the  Thames  all  commerce  winging  its 
way  eastward.  Across  the  western  extremity  of  Fisher's  Island,  on  a  fair 
night,  New  London  and  Montauk  lights  exchange  burning  glances.  From 
Watch  Hill  the  low  and  distant  shore  of  Long  Island  is  easily  distinguished 
by  day,  and  by  night  its  beacon-light  flashes  an  answer  to  its  twin-brother 
of  Montauk.  These  two  towers  are  the  Pillars  of  Hercules  of  the  Sound, 
on  which  are  hung  the  long  and  radiant  gleams  that  bridge  its  gate-way. 
South-west  of  Fisher's  Island  are  the  two  Gull  Islets,  on  the  smallest  of 


1  Watch  Hill,  in  the  town  of  Westerly  and  near  Stonington,  is  the  south-western  extremity  of 
Rhode  Island. 


NEW  LONDON  AND  NORWICH.  40  j 

which  is  a  light -house.  The  swift  tide  which  washes  them  is  called  the 
Horse-race.  Next  comes  Plum  Island,  separated  from  the  Long  Island  shore 
by  a  narrow  and  swift  channel  known  as  Plum  Gut,  through  which  cunning 
yachtsmen  sometimes  steer.  In  1667,  Samuel  Wyllys,  of  Hartford,  bought 
Plum  Island  for  a  barrel  of  biscuit  and  a  hundred  awls  and  fish-hooks. 

Any  one  who  looks  at  the  long  ellipse  of  water  embraced  within  Lon^ 
Island  and  the  Connecticut  shore,  and  remarks  the  narrow  and  obstructed 
channel  through  which  it  communicates  with  the  Hudson,  the  chain  of  islands 
at  its  meeting  with  the  ocean  on  the  east,  must  be  impressed  with  the  belief 
that  he  is  beholding  one  of  the  greatest  physical  changes  that  have  occurred 
on  the  New  England  coast.  As  it  is,  Long  Island  Sound  lacks  little  of  being 
an  inland  sea.  The  absence  of  any  certain  indications  of  the  channels  of  the 
rivers  emptying  into  the  Sound  west  of  the  Connecticut  favors  the  theory  of 
the  union,  at  some  former  time,  of  Long  Island  at  its  western  end  with  the 
main-land. 

To  resume  our  survey  of  the  coast,  we  see  on  the  map,  about  midway  be 
tween  Point  Judith  and  Montauk,  the  pear-shaped  spot  of  land  protruding 


NEW   LONDON  IIAKBOK,  NORTH    VIEW. 

above  the  ocean  called  Block  Island.1  It  is  about  eight  miles  long,  diversified 
with  abrupt  hills  and  narrow  dales,  but  destitute  of  trees.  A  chain  of  ponds 
extending  from  the  north  and  nearly  to  the  centre,  with  several  separate  and 
smaller  ones,  constitutes  about  one-seventh  of  the  island.  There  is  no  ship 
harbor,  and  in  bad  weather  fishing-boats  are  obliged  to  be  hauled  on  shore, 
though  the  sea -mole  in  process  of  construction  by  Government  will  afford 
both  haven  and  safeguard  against  the  surges  of  the  Atlantic ;  for  the  island, 
having  no  rock  foundation,  is  constantly  wasting  away.  Cottages  of  wood, 
whitewashed  every  spring,  are  scattered  promiscuously  over  the  island,  with 
wretched  roads  or  lanes  to  accommodate  every  dwelling.  The  total  disap 
pearance  of  the  island  has  often  been  predicted,  and  I  recollect  when  the  im- 


1  Named  from  Captain  Adrian  Blok,  a  Dutch  navigator.  Its  Indian  name  was  Manisses. 
There  are  about  twelve  hundred  inhabitants  on  this  island,  all  native-born,  of  whom  two  hun 
dred  and  seventy-five  are  voters.  There  are  also  six  schools,  two  Baptist  churches,  and  two  wind 
mills,  a  hotel,  and  several  summer  boarding-houses.  Two  hundred  fishing-boats  are  owned  by  the 
islanders.  In  1636  John  Oldham,  mentioned  in  our  ramble  in  Plymouth,  was  murdered  here  by 
the  Fequots.  Block  Island  in  1672  was  made  a  township,  by  the  name  of  New  Shoreham. 


422 


THE  NEW  ENGLAND  COAST. 


pression  prevailed  to  some  extent  on  the  main-land  that 
the  islanders  had  only  an  eye  apiece. 

Ascending  now  the  river  toward  New  .London,  wind, 
tide,  or  steam  shall  sweep  us  under  the  granite  battle 
ments  of  Fort  Trumbull,  on  the  one  side,  and  the  grassy 
mounds  of  Fort  Griswold  on  the  other.1  Near  the  latter 
is  standing  a  monument  commemorating  the  infamy  of 
Benedict  Arnold  and  the  heroism  of  a  handful  of  brave 
men  sacrificed  to  what  is  called  the  chances  of  war. 
New  London  is  seen  straggling  up  the  side  of  a  steep 
and  rocky  hill,  dominated  by 
three  pointed  steeples.  De 
scending  from  the  crest,  its 
principal  street  opens  like 
the  mouth  of  a  tunnel  at 
the  water-side  into  a  broad 
space,  always  its  market 
place  and  chief  landing. 
Other  avenues  follow  the 
natural  shelf  above  the 
shore,  or  find  their  way  de 
viously  as  streams  might  down  the  hilt-side.  Tiie  glory  of  New  London  is 
in  its  trees,  though  in  some  streets  they  stand  so  thick  as  to  exclude  the 
sun-light,  and  oppress  the  wayfarer  with  the  feeling  of  walking  in  a  church 
yard. 

The  destruction  of  New  London  by  Arnold's 
command,  in  1781,  has  left  little  that  is  suggestive 
of  its  beginning.  Its  English  settlement  goes  no 
farther  back  than  1646.  In  that  year  and  the  next 
a  band  of  pioneers  from  the  Massachusetts  colony, 
among  whom  was  John  Winthrop,  Jun.,2  built  their 
cottages,  and  made  these  wilds  echo  with  the  sounds 
of  their  industry. 


>'E\V    LONDON    LIGHT. 


1  The  two  forts,  Trumbull  and  Griswold,  are  named  from  governors  of  Connecticut.     They  date 
from  the  Kevolution.     Fort  Trumbull  in  its  present  form  was  completed  in  1849,  under  the  super 
vision  of  General  G.  W.  Cullum,  U.  S.  A.      In  passing  through  New  London  in  April,  1770, 
General  Kuox,  by  Washington's  direction,  examined  the  harbor  with  the  view  of  erecting  forti 
fications,  and  reported,  by  letter,  that  it  would,  in  connection  with  Newport,  afford  a  safe  retreat 
to  the  American  navy  or  its  prizes  in  any  wind  that  blew. 

2  Son  of  Governor  Winthrop,  of  Massachusetts.     He  passed  his  first  winter  on  Fisher's  Island, 
which  remained  in  his  family  through  six  generations.     The  valuable  manuscript  collection  known 
as  the  Winthrop  papers  was  found  some  years  ago  on  the  island,  which  belongs  to  New  York  in 
consequence  of  the  grants  to  the  Earl  of  Stirling  and  the  Duke  of  York.     The  origin  of  its  present 


NEW  LONDON  AND  NORWICH.  423 

Old  London  and  Father  Thames  are  repeated  in  New  England,  because, 
as  these  honest  settlers  avow,  they  loved  the  old  names  as  much  as  they 
disliked  the  barbaric 
sounds  of  the  aborig 
inal  ones,  though  the 
latter  were  always 
typical  of  some  salient 
characteristic.  They 
settled  upon  the  fair 
Mohegan,  in  the  coun 
try  of  the  Pequots,  a 
race  fierce  and  war-  OLD  BLOCK  HOUSE'  FOKT  ™UMBULL. 

like,  who  in  1637  had  made  a  death-grapple  of  it  with  the  pale-faces,  and  had 
been  blotted  out  from  among  the  red  nations.  Pequot  was  the  name  of  the 
harbor,  changed  in  1658  to  New  London. 

I  first  visited  New  London  in  1845.  It  was  then  a  bustling  place — a  lit 
tle  too  bustling,  perhaps,  when  rival  crews  of  whalemen  in  port  joined  battle 
in  the  market-place,  unpaving  the  street  of  its  oyster-shells,  and  shouting  war- 
cries  never  before  heard  except  at  Otaheite  or  Juan  Fernandez.  A  large 
fleet  of  vessels,  engaged  in  whaling  and  sealing  voyages,  then  sailed  out  of 
the  Thames.  The  few  old  hulks  laid  up  at  the  wharves,  the  rusty-looking 
oil-butts  and  discarded  paraphernalia  pertaining  to  the  fishery,  yet  reminded 
me  of  the  hunters  who  lassoed  the  wild  coursers  of  sea-prairies.1 

I  have  already  confessed  to  a  weakness  for  the  wharves.  There  is  one  in 
New  London,  appropriated  to  the  use  of  the  Light-house  Board,  on  which  are 
piled  hollow  iron  cylinders,  spare  anchors,  chain  cables,  spars  and  spindles, 
buoys  and  beacons.  A  "relief"  light-ship,  and  a  tug-boat  with  steam  up,  lay 
beside  it.  The  danger  and  privation  of  life  in  a  light-house  is  not  to  be  com 
pared  with  that  on  board  the  light-ship,  which  is  towed  to  its  station  on  some 
dangerous  shoal  or  near  some  reef,  and  there  anchored.  It  not  unfrequent- 
ly  happens  in  violent  storms  that  the  light-ship  breaks  from  its  moorings, 
and  meets  the  fate  it  was  intended  to  signal  to  other  craft.3  The  sight  of  a 

name  is  uncertain,  though  so  called  as  early  as  1636.  Governor  Winthrop  relates  to  Cotton  Mather 
a  singular  incident  which  happened  on  Fisher's  Island  the  previous  winter.  During  the  severe 
snow-storms  hundreds  of  sheep,  besides  cattle  and  horses,  were  buried  in  the  snow.  Even  the  wild 
beasts  came  into  the  settlements  for  shelter.  Twenty-eight  days  after  the  storm  alluded  to,  the 
tenants  of  Fisher's  Island,  in  extricating  the  bodies  of  a  hundred  sheep  from  one  bank  of  snow  in 
the  valley,  found  two  alive  in  the  drift,  where  they  had  subsisted  by  eating  the  fleeces  of  those 
lying  dead  near  them. 

1  In  1834:  New  London  employed  thirty-six  vessels  in  whaling  and  sealing.     A  few  are  still  en 
gaged  in  the  latter  fishery,  in  the  extreme  navigable  waters  of  the  Arctic  and  Antarctic  seas. 

2  During  the  unexampled  cold  of  the  past  winter  (1874-'7o),  the  light-boat  off  New  London 
was,  in  fact,  carried  away  from  her  moorings  by  an  ice-field,  and  many  others  all  along  the  coast 
were  stranded. 


424 


THE   NEW   ENGLAND   COAST. 


raging  sea  as  high  as  the  decks  of  the  vessel  is  one  familiar  to  these  hardy 
mariners.  When  I  expressed  surprise  that  men  were  willing  to  hazard  their 
lives  on  these  cockle-shells,  a  veteran  sea-dog  glanced  at  the  scanty  sail  his 
vessel  carried  as  he  replied,  "  We  can  get  somewhere." 

On  the  light-ship  the  lanterns  are  protected  by  little  houses,  built  around 
each  mast,  until  lighted,  when  they  are  hoisted  to  the  mast-head.  A  fog-bell 
is  carried  on  the  forecastle  to  be  tolled  in  thick  weather.  A  more  funereal 
sound  than  its  monotone,  deep  and  heavy,  vibrating  across  a  sea  shrouded  in 
mist,  can  scarcely  be  imagined. 


A  LIGHT-SHIP  ON   HER   STATION. 


Old  sailors  are  considered  to  make  the  best  keepers  of  either  floating  or 
stationary  beacons.  Their  long  habit  of  keeping  watches  on  shipboard  ren 
ders  them  more  reliable  than  landsmen  to  turn  out  in  all  kinds  of  weather,  or 
on  a  sudden  call.  They  are  also  far  more  observant  of  changes  of  the  weath 
er,  of  tides,  or  the  position  of  passing  vessels.  I  have  found  many  persons  in 
charge  of  our  sea-coast  lights  who  had  been  ship-masters,  and  were  men  of 
more  than  ordinary  intelligence.  When  the  Fresnel  lenticular  light  was  be 
ing  considered,  it  was  objected  by  those  having  our  system  in  charge  that  it 
would  be  difficult  to  procure  keepers  of  sufficient  intelligence  to  manage  the 
lens  apparatus.  M.  Fresnel  replied  that  this  difficulty  had  been  most  singu 
larly  exaggerated,  as  in  France  the  country  keepers  belonged  almost  always 


NEW  LONDON  AND  NORWICH. 


425 


COUKT-llOL'^E,   NEW    LONDON. 


to  the  class  of  ordinary  mechanics  or  laborers,  who,  with  eight  or  ten  days' 
instruction,  were  able  to  perform  their  duties  satisfactorily.1 

All  visitors  to  New  London  find  their  way,  sooner  or  later,  to  the  Old 
Hempstead  House,  a  venerable 
roof  dotted  with -moss-tufts,  situ 
ated  on  Jay  Street,  not  far  west 
of  the  court-house.  It  is  one  of 
the  few  antiques  which  time  and 
the  flames  have  spared.  As  one  of 
the  old  garrison-houses  standing 
in  the  midst  of  a  populous  city, 
it  is  an  eloquent  reminder  of  the 
race  it  has  outlived.  It  was  built 
and  occupied  by  Sir  Robert  Hemp- 
stead,  descending  as  entailed  prop 
erty  to  the  seventh  generation, 
who  continued  to  inhabit  it.  The 
Hempstead  House  is  near  the  cove 
around  which  the  first  settlement  of  the  town  appears  to  have  clustered.  The 
last  remaining  house  built  by  the  first  settlers  stood  about  half  a  mile  west 
of  the  court-house,  on  what  was  called  Cape  Ann  Street :  it  was  taken  down 
about  1824.  Governor  Winthrop  lived  at  the  head  of  the  cove  bearing  his 
name  at  the  north  end  of  the  city. 

The  court-house  standing  at  the  head  of  State  (formerly  Court)  Street 
has  the  date  of  1784  on  the  pediment,  having  been  rebuilt  after  the  burning 
of  the  town  by  Arnold.3  At  the  other  end  of  the  street  was  the  jail.  The 
court-house,  which  formerly  had  an  exterior  gallery,  has  a  certain  family  re 
semblance  to  the  State-house  at  Newport.  It  is  built  of  wood,  with  some 
attempt  at  ornamentation.  Freshened  up  with  white  paint  and  green  blinds, 
it  looked  remarkably  unlike  a  seat  of  justice,  which  is  usually  dirty  enough 
in  all  its  courts  to  be  blind  indeed. 

In  the  chancel  of  St.  James's  repose  the  ashes  of  Samuel  Seabury,  the  first 
Anglican  bishop  in  the  United  States.  He  took  orders  in  1753  in  London, 
and  on  returning  to  his  native  country  entered  upon  the  work  of  his  ministry. 
In  1775,  having  subscribed  to  a  royalist  protest,  declaring  his  "  abhorrence  of 
all  unlawful  congresses  and  committees,"  he  was  seized  by  the  Whigs,  and 
confined  in  New  Haven  jail.  Later  in  the  war,  he  became  chaplain  of  Colonel 

1  At  the  light-houses  I  have  visited  in  cold  weather,  the  unvarying  complaint  is  made  of  the 
poor  quality  of  the  oil  furnished  by  the  Light-house  Board.  One  keeper  told  me  he  was  obliged 
to  shovel  the  congealed  lard-oil  out  of  the  tank  in  the  oil-room,  and  carry  it  into  the  dwelling,  some 
rods  distant,  to  heat  it  on  his  stove ;  sometimes  repeating  the  operation  frequently  daring  the  night, 
in  order  to  keep  his  light  burning. 

8  It  is  shown  in  the  view  of  New  London  in  1813,  at  the  head  of  this  chapter. 


426  THE  NEW  ENGLAND  COAST. 

Tanning's  regiment  of  American  loyalists.  After  the  war,  Mr.  Seabtiry  went 
to  England  in  order  to  obtain  consecration  as  bishop,  but,  meeting  with  ob 
stacles  there,  he  was  conse 
crated  in  Scotland  by  three 
non  -  juring  bishops.  The 
monument  reproduced  is 
from  the  old  burying-ground 
of  New  London.1 

The   ancient  burial-place 
of  New    London    is    in    the 
BISHOP  SEABURY'S  MONUMENT.  northern  part  of  the  city,  on 

elevated  ground,  not  far  from  the  river.     An  old  fractured  slab  of  red  sand 
stone  once  bore  the  now  illegible  inscription : 

"An  epitaph  on  Captaine  Richard  Lord,  deceased  May  17,  1662,  Aetatis  svae  51. 

" Bright  starre  of  ovr  chivallrie  lies  here 

To  the  state  a  covnsellorr  fvll  deare 
And  to  ye  trvth  a  friend  of  sweete  content 
To  Hartford  towne  a  silver  ornament 
Who  can  deny  to  poore  he  was  releife 
And  in  composing  paroxyies  he  was  cheife 
To  Marchantes  as  a  patterne  he  might  stand 
Adventring  dangers  new  by  sea  and  land." 

The  harbor  of  New  London  being  considered  one  of  the  best  in  New  En 
gland,  its  claim  to  be  a  naval  station  has  been  urged  from  time  to  time  upon 
the  General  Government.  It  is  spacious,  safe,  and  deep.  During  the  past 
winter,  which  has  so  severely  tested  the  capabilities  of  our  coast  harbors, 
closing  many  of  them  with  an  ice-blockade  of  long  continuance,  that  of  New 
London  has  remained  open.  In  1835,  when  the  navigation  of  the  harbor  of 
New  York  was  suspended,  by  being  solidly  frozen,  New  London  harbor  re- 
remained  unobstructed,  vessels  entering  and  departing  as  in  summer.2 

Among  other  observations  made  among  the  shipping,  I  may  mention  the 
operations  of  the  destructive  worm  that  perforates  a  ship's  bottom  or  a  thick 

1  Bishop  Seabury  was  born  in  1728,  and  died  in  1796,  aged  68.     In  person  he  was  large,  ro 
bust,  and  vigorous  ;   dignified  and  commanding  in  appearance,  and  loved  by  his  parishioners  of  low 
estate.     After  consecration  he  discharged  the  functions  of  bishop  of  the  diocese  of  Connecticut  and 
Rhode  Island. 

2  The  months  of  January  and  February,  1875,  will  be  long  remembered  in  New  England  for  the 
intense  and  long-continued  cold  weather.     Long  Island  Sound  was  a  vast  ice-field,  which  sealed  up 
its  harbors.     For  a  time  navigation  was  entirely  suspended,  the  boats  usually  plying  between  New 
port,  Stonington,  New  London,  and  New  York  being  obliged  to  discontinue  their  voyages.     Gar 
diner's  Bay  was  completely  closed.     The  shore  of  Long  Island,  on  its  ocean  side,  was  strewed  with 
great  blocks  of  ice.     An  unusual  number  of  disasters  signalized  the  ice  embargo  throughout  the 
whole  extent  of  the  New  England  coast. 


NEW  LONDON  AND   NORWICH. 


427 


GKOTON    MONUMENT. 


stick  of  timber  with  equal  ease.  I  now  had  an  opportunity  of  confirming 
what  I  had  often  been  told,  yet  scarcely  credited,  that  the  worm  could  be 
distinctly  heard  while  boring.  The  sound  made  by  the  borer  exactly  resem 
bled  that  of  an  auger.  It  is  not  a  little  surprising  to  reflect  that  so  in 
significant  a  worm — not  longer  than 
a  cambric  needle  when  it  first  attacks" 
the  wood — is  able  to  penetrate  solid 
oak.  I  noticed  evidences  where  these 
dreaded  workmen  were  still  busy,  in 
little  dust-heaps  lying  on  the  timber 
not  yet  removed  from  a  vessel. 

With  the  aid  of  a  wheezy  ferry 
boat  that  landed  me  on  Groton  side, 
I  still  pursued  my  questionings  or 
communings  under  the  inspiration  of 
a  sunny  afternoon,  a  transparent  air, 
and  a  breeze  brisk  and  bracing,  bring 
ing  with  it  the  full  flavor  of  the  sea. 
A  climb  up  the  steep  ascent  leading  to  the  old  fort  was  rewarded  by  the 
most  captivating  views,  and  by  gales  that  are  above  blowing  in  the  super 
heated  streets  of  a  city. 

The  granite  monument,  which  is  our  guide  to  the  events  these  heights 
have  witnessed,  was  built  with  the  aid  of  a  lottery.  A  marble  tablet  placed 
above  its  entrance  is  inscribed : 

This  Monument 

was  erected  under  the  patronage  of  the  State  of  Connecticut,  A.D.  1830, 
and  in  the  55th  year  of  the  Independence  of  the  U.  S.  A., 

In  Memory  of  the  Brave  Patriots 
who  fell  in  the  massacre  of  Fort  Griswold,  near  this  spot, 

on  the  6th  of  September,  A.D.  1781, 
When  the  British,  under  the  command  of  the  Traitor, 

BENEDICT  ARNOLD, 

burnt  the  towns  of  New  London  and  Groton,  and  spread 
desolation  and  woe  throughout  this  region. 

Westminster  Abbey  could  not  blot  out  that  arraignment.  Dr.  Johnson 
did  not  know  Benedict  Arnold  when  he  said,  "  Patriotism  is  the  last  refuge 
of  a  scoundrel."  An  American  school  -  boy,  if  asked  to  name  the  greatest 
villain  the  world  has  produced,  would  unhesitatingly  reply,  "The  traitor, 
Benedict  Arnold."  The  sentence  wrhich  history  has  passed  upon  him  is 
eternal.  Some  voice  is  always  repeating  it. 

Shortly  after  the  peace  of '83  Arnold  was  presented  at  court.  While  the 
king  was  conversing  with  him,  Earl  Balcarras,  who  had  fought  with  Bur- 
goyne  in  America,  was  announced.  The  king  introduced  them. 


428  THE  NEW  ENGLAND  COAST. 

"  What,  sire,"  exclaimed  the  haughty  old  earl,  refusing  his  hand,  "  the  trai 
tor  Arnold  !" 

The  consequence  was  a  challenge  from  Arnold.  The  parties  met,  and  it 
was  arranged  they  should  fire  together.  Arnold  fired  at  the  signal,  but  the 
earl,  flinging  down  his  pistol,  turned  on  his  heel,  and  was  walking  away, 
when  his  adversary  called  out, 

"Why  don't  you  fire, my  lord?" 

"  Sir,"  said  the  earl,  looking  over  his  shoulder,  "  I  leave  you  to  the  execu 
tioner." 

The  British  attack  on  New  London  was  not  a  blind  stroke  of  premeditated 
cruelty,  but  a  part  of  the  only  real  grand  strategy  developed  since  the  cam 
paign  of  Trenton.  Sir  Henry  Clinton  had.  been  completely  deceived  by 
Washington's  movement  upon  Yorktown,  and  now  launched  his  expedition 
upon  Connecticut,  with  the  hope  of  arresting  his  greater  adversary's  prog 
ress.  Arnold  was  the  suitable  instrument  for  such  work. 

The  expedition  of  1781  landed  on  both  sides  of  the  harbor,  one  detach 
ment  under  command  of  the  traitor  himself,  near  the  light-house,  the  other  at 
Groton  Point.  Fort  Trumbull,  being  untenable,  was  evacuated,  its  little  gar 
rison  crossing  the  river  to  Fort  Griswold.  Encountering  nothing  on  his  march 
except  a  desultory  fire  from  scattered  parties,  Arnold  entered  New  London, 
and  proceeded  to  burn  the  shipping  and  warehouses  near  the  river.  In  his 
official  dispatch  he  disavows  the  general  destruction  of  the  town  which  en 
sued,  but  the  testimony  is  conclusive  that  dwellings  were  fired  and  plundered 
in  every  direction  by  his  troops,  and  under  his  eye.1 

The  force  that  landed  upon  Groton  side  was  led  by  Lieutenant-colonel 
Eyre  against  Fort  Griswold,  which  then  contained  one  hundred  and  fifty  men, 
under  Lieutenant-colonel  William  Ledyard,  cousin  of  the  celebrated  traveler. 
The  surrender  of  the  fort  being  demanded  and  refused,  the  British  assaulted 
it  on  three  sides.  They  were  resisted  with  determined  courage,  but  at  length 
effected  an  entrance  into  the  work.  Eyre  had  been  wounded,  and  his  suc 
cessor,  Montgomery,  killed  in  the  assault.  Finding  himself  overpowered,  Led 
yard  advanced  and  offered  his  sword  to  Major  Bromfield,  now  in  command 
of  the  enemy,  who  asked,  "Who  commands  this  fort?" 

"I  did,"  courteously  replied  Ledyard  ;  "  but  you  do  now." 

Bromfield  immediately  stabbed  Ledyard  with  his  own  sword,  and  the 
hero  fell  dead  at  the  feet  of  the  coward  and  assassin.3  This  revolting  deed 

1  In  all,  the.  British  destroyed  one  hundred  and  forty-three  buildings,  sixty-five  of  which  were 
dwellings,  and  including  the  court-house,  jail,  and  church. 

2  In  the  Wadsworth  Museum,  Hartford,  the  vest  and  shirt  worn  by  Ledyard  on  the  day  of 
his  death,  are  still  shown  to  the  visitor.     Lafayette,  when  attacking  the  British  redoubt  at  York- 
town,  ordered  his  men,  it  is  said  with  Washington's  consent,  to  "  remember  New  London."     The 
continental  soldiers  could  not  or  would  not  execute  the  command  on  prisoners  who  begged  their 
lives  on  their  knees. 


NEW  LONDON  AND    NORWICH. 


429 


was  reserved  for  a  Tory  officer,  of  whom  Arnold  officially  writes  Sir  II.  Clin 
ton,  his  "  behavior  on  this  occasion  does  him  great  honor."  The  survivors  of 
the  garrison  were  nearly  all  put  to  the  sword,  and  even  the  wounded  treated 
with  incredible  cruelty.1 

Fort  Griswold  is  a  parallelogram,  having  a  foundation  of  rough  stone,  on 
which  very  thick  and  solid  embankments 
have  been  raised.  It  is  the  best  preserved 
of  any  of  the  old  earth-works  I  have  seen 
since  Fort  George,  at  Castine.  The  position 
is  naturally  very  strong,  far  stronger  than 
Bunker  Hill,  which  cost  so  many  lives  to 
carry.  On  all  sides  except  the  east  the  hill 
is  precipitous;  here  the  ascent  is  gradual, 
and  having  surmounted  it,  an  attacking  force 
would  find  itself  on  an  almost  level  area  of 
sufficient  extent  to  form  two  thousand  men. 
In  consequence  of  the  knowledge  that  this 
was  their  weak  point  of  defense,  the  Ameri 
cans  constructed  a  small  redoubt,  the  re 
mains  of  which  may  still  be  seen  about  three 
hundred  yards  distant  from  the  main  work. 

Groton  was  the  seat  of  the  Pequot  power,  the  royal  residence  ofSassacus 
being  situated  on  a  commanding  eminence  called  Fort  Hill,  four  miles  east 
of  New  London.  This  was  his  principal  fortress,  though  there  was  another 
about  eight  miles  distant  from  New  London,  near  Mystic,  which  was  the  scene 
of  the  memorable  encounter  which  all  our  historians  from  Cotton  Mather  to 
Dr.  Palfrey  have  related  with  such  minuteness.  The  conquest  of  the  Pequots, 
with  whom,  man  against  man,  no  other  of  the  red  nations  near  their  frontiers 
dared  to  contend,  was  heroic  in  the  little  band  of  Englishmen  by  whom  it  was 
eifected.  The  reduction  to  a  handful  of  outcasts  of  a  nation  that  counted  a 
thousand  warriors  was  a  stroke  of  fortune  the  English  owed  to  the  assistance 
of  Uncas,  a  rebel  against  his  lawful  chieftain,  Sassacus,  and  of  Miantonimo, 
whose  alliance  had  been  secured  by  Roger  Williams.2 

Captain  John  Mason,  who  had  served  under  Fairfax  in  the  Netherlands,  is 


BENEDICT   ARNOLD. 


1  Soon  after  the  surrender  a  wagon  loaded  with  wounded  Americans  was  set  in  motion  down 
the  hill.     In  its  descent  it  struck  with  great  force  against  a  tree,  causing  the  instant  death  of  sev 
eral  of  its  occupants. — "Gordon's  Revolution,"  vol.  iv.,  p.  179. 

2  Captain  Mason,  with   the  Connecticut   and    Massachusetts    forces,  numbering   in   all  only 
ninety  men,  together  with  about  four  hundred  Narragansets  and  Mohegans,  attacked  the  Pequot 
fortress  on  the  morning  of  May  26th,  1637.     His  Indian  allies  skulked  in  the  rear.     Mason's  onset 
was  a  complete  surprise ;  but  he  would  not  have  succeeded  had  he  not  fired  the  fort,  which  created 
a  panic  among  the  enemy,  and  rendered  them  an  easy  prey  to  the  English  and  friendly  Indian^ 
surrounding  it.     Between  six  and  seven  hundred  Fequots  perished. 


430 


THE  NEW  ENGLAND  COAST. 


the  ideal  Puritan  soldier.  Before  leading  his  men  on  to  storm  the  Pequot 
stronghold,  they  knelt  together  in  the  moonlight,  which  shone  brightly  on  that 
May  morning,  and  commended  themselves  and  their  enterprise  to  God.  Re 
port  says  that  the  accompanying  Narragansets  and  Mohegans  were  much  as 
tounded  and  troubled  at  the  sight.  Satisfied  that  he  could  not  conquer  the 
Pequots  hand  to  hand  with  his  little  force,  Mason  himself  applied  a  fire-brand 
to  the  wigwams.  His  own  account  of  the  Pequot  war,  reprinted  by  Prince 
in  1736,  is  the  best  and  fullest  narrative  of  its  varying  fortunes. 


STORMING   OF   THE   INDIAN   FORTRESS. 


Mason  relates  that  he  had  but  one  pint  of  strong  liquors  in  his  army  dur 
ing  its  whole  march.  Like  a  prudent  commander,  he  carried  the  bottle  in  his 
hand,  and  ingenuously  says,  when  it  was  empty  the  very  smelling  of  it  would 
presently  recover  such  as  had  fainted  away  from  the  extremity  of  the  heat. 
Among  the  special  providences  of  the  day  he  mentions  that  Lieutenant  Bull 
had  an  arrow  shot  into  a  hard  piece  of  cheese  he  carried,  that  probably  saved 
his  life;  "  which  may  verify  the  old  saying,"  adds  the  narrator,  that  "a  little 
armor  would  serve,  if  a  man  knew  where  to  place  it."1  Fuller,  in  one  of  his 
sermons,  has  another  and  a  similar  proverb:  "It  is  better  to  fight  naked  than 
with  bad  armor,  for  the  rags  of  a  bad  corselet  make  a  deeper  wound,  and 
worse  to  be  healed,  than  the  bullet  itself."  Mason  ultimately  settled  in  Nor 
wich,  and  died  there. 


1  The  English  in  these  eaVly  wars  fought  in  armor,  that  is  to  say,  a  steel  cap  and  corselet,  with 
a  back  and  breast  piece,  over  buff  coats,  the  common  equipment  everywhere  of  that  day  for  a  horse 
or  foot  soldier. 


NEW  LONDON  AND  NORWICH. 


431 


SILAS   DEANE. 


Silas  Deane  was  a  native  of  Groton.  Of  the  three  men  to  whom  Congress 
intrusted  its  secret  negotiations  with  European 
powers,  Franklin  was  the  only  one  whose  char 
acter  did  not  permanently  suffer,  although  he 
did  not  escape  the  malignity  and  envy  of  Ar 
thur  Lee.  The  Virginian's  enmity  and  jeal 
ousy,  aided  by  the  influence  of  his  brothers, 
were  more  successful  in  sullying  the  name  and 
lame  of  Silas  Deane.  Yet  Arthur  Lee  was  a 
patriot  and  an  honest  man,  whose  public  life 
was  corroded  by  a  morbid  envy  and  distrust 
of  his  associates.  A  more  disastrous  appoint 
ment  than  his  could  hardly  have  been  made, 
as  his  temperament  especially  unfitted  him  for 
a  near  approach  to  men  who,  with  all  the  world's  polish,  were,  in  diplomatic 
phrase,  able  to  cut  an  adversary's  throat  with  a  hair. 

John  Quincy  Adams,  who  may  perhaps  have  inherited  his  father's  dislike 
of  Deane,  once  said,  in  the  course  of  a  conversation  with  some  friends: 

"A  son  of  Silas  Deane  was  one  of  my  school-fellows.1  I  never  saw  him 
again  until  last  autumn,  when  I  recognized  him  on  board  a  steamboat,  and  in 
troduced  him  to  Lafayette,  who  said,  '  Do  you  and  Deane  agree  ?'  I  said, 
4  Yes.'  '  That's  more  than  your  fathers  did  before  you,'  replied  the  general. 

"  Silas  Deane,"  continued  Mr.  Adams,  "  was  a  man  of  fine  talents,  but,  like 
General  Arnold,  he  was  not  true  to  his  country.  After  he  was  dismissed 
from  the  service  of  the  United  States  he  went  to  England,  lived  for  a  long 
time  on  Lord  Sheffield's  patronage,  and  wrote  a  book  which  did  more  to 
widen  the  breach  between  England  and  America,  and  produce  unpleasant 
feelings  between  the  two  countries,  than  any  work  that  had  been  pub 
lished.  Finally  he  determined  to  return  to  America,  but,  in  a  fit  of  remorse 
and  despair,  committed  suicide  before  the  vessel  left  the  Thames.  His  char 
acter  and  fate  affected  those  of  his  son,  who  has  lived  in  obscurity."2 

It  is  possible  that  Silas  Deane's  patriotism  was  not  proof  against  the  ingrat 
itude  he  had  experienced,  and  that  he  became  soured  and  disaffected ;  but  it 
is  scarcely  just  to  his  memory  to  call  him  traitor,  or  compare  him  with  such 
an  ignoble  character  as  Arnold.  Deane  was  the  friend  of  Beaumarchais;  he 
was  also  his  confidant.  He  was  the  means  of  securing  the  services  of  Lafay 
ette  for  America.  There  is  little  doubt  that  he  exceeded  his  powers  as  com 
missioner,  involving  Congress  in  embarrassments,  of  which  his  recall  was  the 
solution.  The  malevolence  of  Lee  and  the  crookedness  of  French  diplomacy 


1  Mr.  John  Quincy  Adams  accompanied  his  father  to  France,  and  was  placed  at  school  near 
Paris. 

*  Miss  E.  S.  Quincy 's  "  Memoir." 


432  THE  NEW  ENGLAND  COAST. 

did  what  was  wanting  to  consign  him  to  obscurity  and  poverty.  The  con 
troversy  over  Dearie's  case  produced  a  pamphlet  from  Thomas  Paine,  and 
caused  John  Jay  to  take  the  place  resigned  by  Mr.  Laurens  as  president  of 
Congress.  Deane  and  Beaumarchais  were  the  scape-goats  of  the  French  alli 
ance.1 

John  Ledyard  was  another  monument  of  Groton.  His  first  essay  as  a 
traveler  exhibits  his  courage  and  resource.  He  entered  Dartmouth  as  a  divin 
ity  student ;  but  poverty  obliging  him  to  withdraw  from  the  college,  and  not 
having  a  shilling  in  his  pocket,  he  made  a  canoe  fifty  feet  long,  with  which  he 
floated  down  the  river  one  hundred  and  forty  miles  to  Hartford.  He  then  em 
barked  for  England  as  a  common  sailor,  and  while  there,  under  the  impulse 
of  his  passion  for  travel,  enlisted  with  Captain  Cook  as  a  corporal  of  marines. 
He  witnessed  the  tragical  death  of  his  captain.  In  1771,  after  eight  years' 
absence,  Ledyard  revisited  his  native  country.  His  mother  was  then  keep 
ing  a  boarding-house  at  Southhold.  Her  son  took  lodgings  with  her  without 
being  recognized,  as  had  once  happened  to  Franklin  in  similar  circumstances. 

Ledyard's  subsequent  exploits  in  Europe,  Asia,  and  Africa  bear  the  im 
press  of  a  daring  and  adventurous  spirit.  At  last  he  offered  himself  for  the 
more  perilous  enterprise  of  penetrating  into  the  unknown  regions  of  Central 
Africa.  A  letter  from  Sir  Joseph  Banks  introduced  him  to  the  projectors  of 
the  expedition.  "Before  I  had  learned,"  says  the  gentleman  to  whom  Sir 
Joseph's  letter  was  addressed,  "the  name  and  business  of  my  visitor,  I  was 
struck  with  the  manliness  of  his  person,  the  breadth  of  his  chest,  the  open 
ness  of  his  countenance,  and  the  inquietude  of  his  eye.  Spreading  the  map 
of  Africa  before  him,  and  tracing  a  line  from  Cairo  to  Sennaar,  and  thence 
westward  in  the  latitude  and  supposed  direction  of  the  Niger,  I  told  him  that 
was  the  route  by  which  I  was  anxious  that  Africa  might,  if  possible,  be  ex 
plored.  He  said  he  should  consider  himself  singularly  fortunate  to  be  in 
trusted  with  the  adventure.  I  asked  him  when  he  would  set  out.  His  an 
swer  was,  'To-morrow  morning.'  "2 

New  London's  annals  afford  a  passing  glimpse  of  two  men  who,  though 
enemies,  were  worthy  of  each  other.  During  the  war  with  England  of  1812, 
Decatur,  with  the  United  States,  Macedonian,  and  Hornet,  was  blockaded  in 
New  London  by  Sir  T.  M.  Hardy  with  a  squadron  of  superior  force.  The 
presence  of  the  British  fleet  was  a  constant  menace  to  the  inhabitants,  dis 
quieted  as  they  also  were  by  the  recollections  of  Arnold's  descent.  In  vain 
Decatur  tried  to  escape  the  iron  grip  of  his  adversary.  Hardy's  vigilance 


1  In  1835,  when  President  Jackson  demanded  twenty-five  millions  of  France  on  account  of 
French  spoliations,  the  claim  of  Beaumarchais  was  allowed,  after  deducting  a  million  livres  which 
had  been  advanced  by  Vergennes.  Deane's  heirs  did  not  obtain  an  adjustment  of  his  claims  by 
Congress  until  1842. 

8  Ledyard  proceeded  no  farther  than  Cairo,  where  he  died,  in  1788,  of  a  bilious  fever. 


NEW  LONDON  AND  NORWICH. 


433 


STEPHEN   DECATUR. 


never  relaxed,  and  the  American  vessels  remained  as  uselessly  idle  to  the  end 
of  the  war,  as  if  laid  up  in  ordinary.  Once  Decatur  had  prepared  to  slip 
away  unperceived  to  sea,  but  signals 
made  to  the  hostile  fleet  from  the  shore 
compelled  him  to  abandon  the  attempt. 
He  then  proposed  to  Hardy  a  duel  be 
tween  his  own  and  an  equal  force  of 
British  ships,  which,  though  he  did  not 
absolutely  decline  the  challenge,1  it  is 
pretty  evident  Sir  Thomas  never  meant 
should  happen. 

Decatur  was  brave,  fearless,  and 
chivalric.  He  was  the  handsomest  offi 
cer  in  the  navy.  Coleridge,  who  knew 
him  well  at  Malta,  always  spoke  of  him 
in  the  highest  terms.  Our  history  does 
not  afford  a  more  impressive  example 
of  a  useful  life  uselessly  thrown  away. 
Of  his  duel  with  Ban-on  the  following 
is  probably  a  correct  account  of  the 
closing  scene :  The  combatants  ap 
proached  within  sixteen  feet  of  each  other,  because  one  was  near-sighted,  and 
the  rule  was  that  both  should  take  deliberate  aim  before  the  word  was  given. 
They  both  fired,  and  fell  with  their  heads  not  ten  feet  apart.  Each  believed 
himself  mortally  hurt.  Before  their  removal  from  the  ground  they  were  rec 
onciled,  and^blessed  each  other,  declaring  there  was  nothing  between  them. 
All  that  was  necessary  to  have  prevented  the  meeting  was  a  personal  expla 
nation. 

Sir  T.  Hardy  is  well  known  as  the  captain  of  Nelson's  famous  flag-ship,  the 
Victory,  and  as  having  received  these  last  utterances  of  the  dying  hero:  "An 
chor,  Hardy,  anchor!"  When  the  captain  replied,  "I  suppose,  my  lord,  Ad 
miral  Collingwood  will  now  take  upon  himself  the  direction  of  affairs  ?"  "  Not 
while  I  live,  I  hope,  Hardy  !"  crie,d  the  dying  chief,  endeavoring  ineffectually 
to  raise  himself  from  the  bed.  "  Xo,"  he  added,  "  do  you  anchor,  Hardy." 
"Shall  ice  make  the  signal,  sir?"  "Yes,"  replied  his  lordship,  "for  if  I  live, 
I'll  anchor.  Take  care  of  my  dear  Lady  Hamilton,  Hardy  ;  take  care  of  poor 
Lady  Hamilton.  Kiss  me,  Hardy."2 

1  Decatur  offered  to  match  the  United  States  and  Macedonian  with  the  Endymion  and  Statira. 
Sir  Thomas  declined  the  proposal  as  made,  but  consented  to  a  meeting  between  the  Statira  and 
Macedonian  alone. 

2  Nelson  commended  almost  with  his  latest  breath  Lady  Hamilton  and  his  daughter  as  a  legacy 
to  his  country.     Lady  Hamilton,  however,  died  in  exile,  sickness,  and  actual  wynt  at  Calais, 
France,  in  1815. 

28 


434 


THE  NEW  ENGLAND  COAST. 


With  whatever  local  preferences  the  traveler  may  have  come,  he  will  think 
the  approach  to  Norwich  charming.  Through  banks  high  and  green,  crested 
with  groves,  or  decked  with  white  villages,  the  river  slips  quietly  away  to  min 
gle  in  the  noisy  world  of  waters  beyond.  In  deeper  shadows  of  the  hills  the 
pictures  along  the  banks  are  reproduced  with  marvelous  fidelity  of  form  and 
coloring;  and  even  the  blue  of  the  sky  and  white  drifting  clouds  are  mirrored 
there.  All  terrestrial  things,  however,  appear,  as  in  the  camera,  inverted — 
roofs  or  steeples  pointing  downward,  men  or  animals  walking  with  feet  up 
ward,  along  the  banks,  like  flies  on  a  ceiling.  When  autumn  tints  are  on,  the 
effects  seen  in  the  water  are  heightened  by  the  confused  masses  of  sumptuous 
foliage  hung  like  garlands  along  the  shores. 


RUSTIC   BRIDGE,  NORWICH. 

Norwich  is  ranged  about  a  hill  overlooking  the  Thames.  It  is  on  a  point 
of  rock-land  infolded  by  two  streams,  the  Yantic  and  Shetucket,  that  come 
tumbling  and  hurrying  down  from  the  higher  northern  ranges  to  meet  and 
kiss  each  other  in  the  Thames.  Rising,  terrace  above  terrace,  the  appearance 
of  Norwich,  as  viewed  from  the  river,  is  more  striking  in  its  ensemble  than  by 
reason  of  particular  features.  The  water-side  is  the  familiar  dull  red,  above 
which  glancing  roofs  and  steeples  among  trees  are  seen  retreating  up  the  as 
cent.  By  night  a  ridged  and  chimneyed  blackness  bestrewed  with  lights  re 
wards  the  curious  gazer  from  the  deck  of  a  Sound  steamboat.  I  admired  in 
Norwich  the  broad  avenues,  the  wealth  of  old  trees,  the  luxurious  spaciousness 
of  the  private  grounds.  Washington  Street  is  one  of  the  finest  I  have  walked 
in.  There  is  breathing-room  every  where,  town  and  country  seeming  to  meet 


NEW  LONDON   AND   NORWICH. 


435 


and  clasp  hands,  each  giving  to  the  other  of  the  best  it  had  to  offer.  I  do  not 
mean  that  Norwich  is  countrified ;  but  its  mid-city  is  so  easily  escaped  as  to 
do  away  with  the  feeling  of  imprisonment  in  a  widerness  of  brick,  stone,  and 
plate-glass.  The  suburban  homes  of  Norwich  have  an  air  of  substantial  com 
fort  and  delicious  seclusion.  In  brief,  wherever  one  has  made  up  his  mind  to 
be  buried,  he  would  like  to  live  in  Norwich. 

There  are  not  a  few  picturesque  objects  about  Norwich,  especially  by  the 
shores  of  the  Yantic, 
which,  since  being 
robbed  of  the  falls, 
once  its  pride  and 
glory,  has  become  a 
prosaic  mill-stream.1 
The  water  is  of  the 
blackness  of  Acheron, 
streaked  with  amber 
where  it  falls  over 
rocks,  and  of  a  rusty 
brown  in  shallows,  as 
if  partaking  of  the  col 
or  of  bits  of  decayed 
wood  or  dead  leaves  which  one  sees  at 
the  bottom.  The  stream,  after  havino- 

£5 

been  vexed  by  dams  and  tossed  about 
by  mill-wheels,  bounds  joyously,  and 
with  some  touch  of  savage  freedom,  to 
strike  hands  with  the  Shetucket.  OLD  MILL>  >oinvicll. 

The  practical  reader  should  be  told 

that  the  city  of  Norwich  is  the  outgrowth  and  was  of  yore  the  landing  of 
Norwich  town,  two  miles  above  it.  The  city  was  then  known  as  Chelsea  and 
Norwich  Landing.  The  Mohegans  were  lawful  owners  of  the  soil.  Subse 
quent  to  the  Pequot  war  hostilities  broke  out  between  Uncas,  chief  of  the 
Mohegans,  and  Miantonirno,  the  Narraganset  sachem.  The  Narragansets  in 
vaded  the  territory  of  the  Mohegans,  and  a  battle  occurred  on  the  Great 
Plains,  near  Greenville,  a  mile  and  a  half  below  Norwich.  The  Narragansets 
suffered  defeat,  and  their  chief  became  a  prisoner.  He  was  delivered  by  Un 
cas  to  the  English,  who  condemned  him  to  death,  and  devolved  upon  Uncas 
the  execution  of  the  sentence.  The  captive  chief  was  led  to  the  spot  where 


1  The  falls  were  very  beautiful,  and  have  been  celebrated  by  Trmnbull's  pencil  and  Mrs.  Sigour- 
ney's  verse.  There  still  remain  some  curious  cavities,  worn  in  the  rock  by  the  prolonged  rotary 
motion  of  loose  stones.  Lvdia  Huntlev  Sigourney,  the  most  celebrated  writer  in  prose  or  poetry 
of  her  day  in  New  England,  was  a  native  of  Norwich. 


436  THE  NEW  ENGLAND   COAST. 

he  had  been  made  prisoner,  and,  while  stalking  with  Indian  stoicism  in  the 
midst  of  his  enemies,  was  killed  by  one  blow  from  a  tomahawk  at  the  signal 
of  Uncas.  Miantonimo  was  buried  where  he  fell,  and  from  him  the  spot  takes 
its  name  of  Sachem's  Plain.1 

War  continued  between  the  Narragansets  and  Mohegans,  the  former,  led 
by  a  brother  of  Miantonimo,  being  again  the  assailants.  Uncas  was  at  length 
compelled  to  throw  himself  within  his  strong  fortress,  where  he  was  closely 
besieged,  and  in  danger  of  being  overpowered.  He  found  means  to  send  in 
telligence  to  Saybrook,  where  Captain  Mason  commanded,  that  his  supply  of 
food  was  exhausted.  Mason  immediately  sent  Thomas  Leffingwell  with  a 
boat-load  of  provision,  which  enabled  Uncas  to  hold  out  until  his  enemy  with- 
drew.  For  this  act,  which  he  performed  single-handed,  Lef 
fingwell  received  from  Uncas  the  greater  part  of  Norwich ; 
and  in  1659,  by  a  formal  deed,  signed  by  Uncas  and  his  two 
sons,  Owaneko  and  Attawanhood,  he,  with  Mason,  Rev.  James 
Fitch,  and  others,  became  proprietors  of  the  whole  of  Nor 
wich.2 

I  did  not  omit  a  visit  to  the  ground  where  the  "  buried 
majesty"  of  Mohegan  is  lying.     It  is  on  the  bank  of  the  Yan- 
—  tic,  in  a  secluded  though  populous  neighborhood.     A  granite 

VTr^TT^     T    obelisk,  with  tne  »ame  of  Uncas  in  relief  at  its  base,  erected 
hi.*  murk.  by  citizens  of  Norwich,  stands  within   the   inclosure.      The 

fou»dation  was  laid  by  President  Jackson  in  1833.  Around 
are  clustered  a  few  mossy  stones  chiseled  by  English  hands, 
with  the  brief  record  of  the  hereditary  chieftains  of  a  once  powerful  race.3  In 
its  native  state  the  spot  must  have  been  singularly  romantic  and  well  chosen. 
A  wooded  height  overhangs  the  river  in  full  view  of  the  falls,  where  their  tur 
bulence  subsides  into  a  placid  onward  flow,  and  where  the  chiefs,  ere  their  de- 

1  Before  the  battle  with  the  Narragansets,  Uncas  is  said  to  have  challenged  Miantonimo  to  single 
combat,  promising  for  himself  and  his  nation  to  abide  the  result.     Miantonimo  refused.     This  chief, 
in  his  flight  from  the  field,  was  overtaken  by  Mohegan  warriors,  who  impeded  him  until  Uncas 
could  come  up.     When  Uncas  laid  his  hand  on  Miantonimo's  shoulder,  the  latter  sat  down  in  token 
of  submission,  maintaining  a  sullen  silence.     Uncas  is  said  to  have  eaten  a  piece  of  his  flesh. 

2  The  proprietors  numbered  thirty-five.     Uncas  received  about  seventy  pounds  for  nine  square 
miles.     The  settlement  of  Norwich  is  considered  to  have  begun  in  1GGO,  when  liev.  James  Fitch 
removed  from  Saybrook  to  Norwich  (town). 

3  The  following  inscriptions  are  from  the  royal  burial-ground  of  the  Mohegans : 

"Here  lies  ye  body  of  Pompi  Uncas,  son  of  Benjamin  and  Ann  Uncas,  and  of  ye  royal  blood, 
who  died  May  ye  first,  1740,  in  ye  21st  year  of  his  age." 

"Here  lies  Sam  Uncas,  the  2d  and  beloved  son  of  his  father,  John  Uncas,  Avho  was  the  grand 
son  of  Uncas,  grand  sachem  of  Mohegan,  the  darling  of  his  mother,  being  daughter  of  said  Uncas, 
grand  sachem.  He  died  July  31st,  1741,  in  the  28th  year  of  his  age." 

"In  memory  of  Elizabeth  Joquib,  the  daughter  of  Mahomet,  great-grandchild  to  ye  first  Un 
cas,  great  sachem  of  Mohegan,  who  died  Julyy6  5th,  1750,  aged  33  years." 


NEW  LONDON  AND  NORWICH. 


437 


UNCAS  S   MONUMENT. 


parturc  for  the  happy  hunting-grounds,  might  look  their  last  on  the  villages 
of  their  people.  It  was  the  Indian  custom  to  bury 
by  the  margin  of  river,  lake,  or  ocean.  Here,  doubt 
less,  repose  the  bones  of  many  grim  warriors,  seated 
in  royal  state,  with  their  weapons  and  a  pot  of  suc 
cotash  beside  them.  The  last  interment  here  was 
of  Ezekiel  Mazeon,  a  descendant  of  Uncas,  in  1826. 
The  feeble  remnant  of  the  Mobegana  followed  him 
to  the  grave.1 

Mr.  Sparks  remarks  that  the  history  of  the  In 
dians,  like  that  of  the  Carthaginians,  has  been  writ 
ten  by  their  enemies.  As  the  faithful,  unwavering 
ally  of  the  English,  Uncas  has  received  the  enco 
miums  of  their  historians.  His  statesmanship  has 
been  justified  by  time  and  history.  By  alliance 
with  the  English  he  preserved  his  people  for  many 
generations  after  the  more  numerous  and  powerful  Pequots,  Narragansets, 
and  Wampanoags  had  ceased  to  exist.  In  1638  he  came  with  his  present 
of  wampum  to  Boston,  and  having  convinced  the  English  of  his  loyalty,  thus 
addressed  them  :  "This  heart"  (laying  his  hand  upon  his  breast)  "is  not  mine, 

but  yours.  Command  me  any  difficult 
service,  and  I  will  do  it.  I  have  no  men, 
but  they  are  all  yours.  I  will  never  be 
lieve  any  Indian  against  the  English 
any  more."  It  is  this  invincible  fidel 
ity,  approved  by  important  services, 
that  should  make  his  name  and  char 
acter  respected  by  every  descendant 
of  the  fathers  of  New  England. 

About  midway  of  the  pleasant  ave 
nue  that  unites  old  Norwich  with  new 
ARNOLD'S  BIRTHPLACE.  is  the  birthplace  of  Benedict  Arnold.'' 


1  The  hereditary  chieftainship  was  extinct  as  long  ago  as  the  beginning  of  the  century.     The 
Mohegans  occupied  a  strip  of  land  containing  two  thousand  seven  hundred  acres,  lying  on  the 
Thames  between  Norwich  and  New  London,  above  the  mouth  of  Stony  Brook,  and  between  the 
river  and  Montville.     In  1033  the  Indian  population  of  Connecticut  was  computed  at  eight  persons 
to  the  square  mile ;  the  earliest  enumeration  of  the  Mohegans  made  their  number  one  thousand 
six  hundred  and  sixty-three  souls;  in  1797  only  four  hundred  remained.     By  1825  the  nation  was 
reduced  to  a  score  or  two,  a  portion  having  emigrated  to  Stockbridge,  Massachusetts.     The  Mohe- 
gan  reserve  was  divided  in  1790  among  the  remaining  families  of  the  nation.     The  Mohegans 
were  probably  a  distinct  nation,  though  Uncas  was  a  vassal  of  the  Pequots. 

2  On  the  Colchester  road,  or  Town  Street,  near  the  junction  of  a  street  leading  toward  the 
Falls.     The  estate  is  now  locally  known  as  the  Ripley  Place. 


438 


THE   NEW  ENGLAND   COAST. 


Somewhat  farther  on,  and  when  within  half  a  mile  of  the  town,  you  also  see 
at  the  ri<jht  the  homely  little  building  which  was  the  apothecary's  in  which 

Arnold  worked  as  a  boy 
with  pestle  and  mortar 
to  the  acceptance  of  his 
master,  Dr.  Lathrop,  who 
lived  in  the  adjoining 
mansion.  One  can  bet 
ter  imagine  Arnold  deal 
ing  out  musket -bullets 
than  pills,  and  mixing 
brimstone  with  saltpetre 
rather  than  harmless 
drugs.  As  a  boy  he  was 
bold,  high-spirited,  and 
cruel. 

In  this  neighborhood 
I  saw  a  group  of  elms 
unmatched  for  beauty  in 
New  England.  One  of 
them  is  a  king  among 
trees.  They  are  on  a 
grassy  slope,  before  an 
inviting  mansion,  and  are  in  the  full  glory  of  maturity.  It  was  a  feast  to 
stand  under  their  branching  arms,  and  be  fanned  and  soothed  by  the  play  of 
the  breeze  among  their  green  tresses,  that  fell  in  fountains  of  rustling  foliage 
from  their  crowned  heads.  A  benison  on  those  old  trees  !  May  they  never 
fall  into  the  clutches  of  that  class  who  have  a  real  and  active  hatred  of  every 
thing  beautiful,  or  that  appeals  to 
more  than  their  habitual  perception 
is  able  to  discover! 

I  made  a  brief  visit  at  the  man 
sion  built  by  General  Jedediah  Hun- 
tington  before  he  removed  to  New 
London  after  the  Old  War.1 

In  the  dining-room  was  a  full- 
length  of  General  Eben  Huntington, 
painted  by  Trumbull  at  the  a^e  of 
eighteen.  On  seeing  it  some  years 
afterward,  Trumbull  took  out  his 


ELM-TREES   BY   THE    WAYSIDE. 


GENERAL  HUNTINGTON' S  HOUSE. 


1  The  general  was  appointed  collector  of  New  London  by  Washington,     His  first  wife  was  a 
daughter  of  Governor  Trumbull. 


NEW  LONDON  AND   NORWICH. 


439 


penknife  and  said  to  his  host  and  friend,  "Eb,  let  me  put  my  knife  through 
this."  Another  portrait  -by  the  same  hand,  representing  the  general  at  the 
siege  of  Yorktown,  is  in  a  far  different  manner.  The  three  daughters  of  Gen 
eral  Huntington,  then  living  in  the  old  family  mansion,  in  referring  to  the 
warm  friendship  between  their  father  and  the  painter,  mentioned  that  the 
first  and  last  portraits  painted  by  Colonel  Trumbull  were  of  members  of  their 
family. 

Near  General  Huntington's,  where  many  of  the  choicest  spirits  of  the 
Revolution  have  been  en 
tertained,  is  the  handsome  | 
mansion  of  Governor  Hun-  | 
tington,  a  remote  connec 
tion  of  his  military  neigji- 
bor.  Without  the  advan 
tages  of  a  liberal  educa 
tion,  he  became  a  member 
of  the  old  Congress,  and 
its  president,  chief -justice, 
and  governor  of  Connecti 
cut.  President  D  wight, 
who  knew  him  well,  extols 
his  character  and  abilities 
warmly  and  highly. 

I  had  frequent  oppor 
tunities  of  seeing,  in  my  rambles  about  the  environs  of  New  London  and 
Norwich,  the  beautiful  dwarf  flowering  laurel  (.Kalmia  augustifolia]  that  is 
almost  unknown  farther  north.  In  the  woods,  where  it  was  growing  in  wild 
luxuriance,  it  appeared  like  a  gigantic  azelia,  ablaze  with  fragrant  bloom  of 
white  and  pink.  It  used  to  be  said  that  honey  collected  by  the  bee  from  this 
flower  was  poisonous.  The  broad-leaved  laurel,  or  calico-tree  (Kalmia  lati- 
folia)  was  believed  to  be  even  more  injurious,  instances  being  mentioned 
where  death  had  occurred  from  eating  the  flesh  of  pheasants  that  had  fed  on 
its  leaves. 

Norwich  town  represents  the  kernel  from  which  the  city  has  sprung,  and 
retains  also  no  little  of  the  savor  incident  to  a  population  that  has  held  in 
novations  at  arms-length.  It  has  quiet,  freshness,  and  a  certain  rural  comeli 
ness.  A  broad  green,  or  common,  planted  with  trees,  is  skirted  by  houses, 
many  of  them  a  century  or  more  old,  among  which  I  thought  I  now  and  then 
detected  the  no  longer  familiar  well-sweep,  with  the  "old  oaken  bucket" 
standing  by  the  curb.  On  one  side  of  the  common  the  old  court-house  is 
still  seen. 

Take  the  path  beside  the  meeting-house,  ascending  the  overhanging  rocks 
by  some  natural  steps,  and  you  will  be  richly  repaid  for  the  trifling  exertion. 


MANSION    OF   GOVEKNOK   HUNTINGTON. 


440 


THE  NEW  ENGLAND  COAST. 


The  view  embraces  a  charming  little  valley  watered  by  the  Yantic,  which 
here  flows  through  rich  meadow-lands  and  productive  farms.     Encompassing 

the  settlement  is  another  elevated 
range  of  the  rocky  hills  common  to 
this  region,  making  a  sort  of  amphi 
theatre  in  which  the  town  is  natural 
ly  placed. 

The  old  church  of  Norwich  town 
formerly  stood  in  the  hollow  between 
two  high  hills  above  its  present  site. 
The  pound,  now  its  next  neighbor,  is 
still  a  lawful  inclosure  in  most  of  the 
New  England  States.  Not  many 
years  ago,  I  knew  of  a  town  in  Mas 
sachusetts  that  was  presented  by  a 
grand  jury  for  not  having  one.  I 
visited  the  old  grave-yard,  remarka 
ble  for  its  near  return  to  a  state  of 
nature.  Many  stones  had  fallen,  and 
sometimes  two  were  kept  upright  by 
leaning  one  against  the  other.  Weeds, 
brambles,  and  vines  impeded  my  foot 
steps  or  concealed  the  grave-stones. 
I  must  often  repeat  the  story  of  the 
shameful  neglect  which  involves  most 
of  our  older  cemeteries.  One  is  not 
quite  sure,  in  leaving  them,  that  he  does  not  carry  away  on  his  feet  the  dust 
of  former  generations.  Some  of  the  stones  are  the  most  curious  in  form  and 
design  I  have  met  with.  The  family  tombs  of  Governor  and  General  Hun- 
tington  are  here. 


CONGREGATIONAL   CHURCH. 


PETER   STUYVESANT. 


CHAPTER  XXVIII. 

SAYBROOK. 

"  Says  Tweed  to  Till, 

'What  gars  ye  rin  sae  still?' 

Says  Till  to  Tweed, 

'  Though  ye  rin  wi'  speed, 

An'  I  rin  slaw, 
For  ae  man  that  ye  droon, 

I  droon  twa.'  " — Old  Song. 

RATHER  more  than  a  hundred  miles  from  New  York  the  railway  crosses 
the  Connecticut  River,  on  one  of  those  bridges  that  at  a  little  distance 
resemble  spiders'  webs  hung  between  the  shores.  From  here  one  may  look 
down  quite  to  the  river's  mouth,  where  it  enters  the  Sound ;  and  if  it  be  a 
warm  summer's  day,  the  bluish -gray  streak  of  land  across  it  may  be  seen. 
The  Connecticut  is  the  only  river  of  importance  emptying  upon  the  New  En 
gland  coast  that  has  not  an  island  lodged  in  its  throat. 


442  THE  NEW  ENGLAND  COAST. 

It  was  on  one  of  those  parched  days  of  midsummer,  when  the  very  air  is 
quivering,  and  every  green  tiling  droops  and  shrivels  under  a  vertical  sun, 
that  I  first  alighted  at  the  station  at  Saybrook.  The  listless,  fagged,  and 
jaded  air  of  city  swells  lounging  about  the  platform,  the  flushed  faces  of 
blooming  girls  and  watchful  dowagers,  betokened  the  general  prostration  of 
weary  humanity,  who  yearned  for  the  musical  plash  of  sea-waves  as  the  with 
ering  leaves  and  dusty  grass  longed  for  rain. 

How  feminine  New  England  exaggerates,  to  be  sure  !  A  group  of  three 
young  ladies  exchange  their  views  upon  the  sultriness  of  the  day :  one  ob 
serves,  "  What  a  dreadful  hot  day!"  a  second  declares  it  "horrid"  (torrid, 
perhaps  she  meant  to  say) ;  and  the  last  pronounces  it  "  perfectly  frightful," 
emphasizing  the  opinion  by  opening  her  umbrella  with  a  sharp  snap.  What 
they  would  have  said  to  an  earthquake,  a  conflagration,  or  a  shipwreck,  is 
left  to  bewildering  conjecture. 

In  a  certain  unquiet  portion  of  the  American  Union,  the  term  Connecticut 
Yankee  is  expressive  of  concentrated  dislike  for  shrewd  bargaining,  a  nasal 
twang  of  speech,  and  a  supposed  desire  to  overreach  one's  neighbor.  How 
'often  have  I  heard  in  the  South  the  expression,  "A  mean  Yankee;"  as  if,  for 
sooth,  meanness  were  sectional !  Here  in  New  England  a  Connecticut  Yankee 
is  spoken  of  as  a  cunning  blade  or  sharp  fellow  ;  as  an  Englishman  would  say, 
"He's  Yorkshire  ;"  or  an  Italian,  "E  Spoletino." 

The  day  of  wooden  nutmegs  is  past  and  gone,  and  Connecticut  is  more 
familiarly  known  as  the  "Land  of  Steady  Habits."  The  whole  State  is  a  hive. 
Every  smoky  town  you  see  is  a  buSy  work-shop.  The  problem  of  the  Con 
necticut  man  is  how  to  do  the  most  work  in  the  shortest  time,  whether  by 
means  of  a  sewing-machine,  a  Colt,  or  a  mitrailleuse.  If  I  should  object  to 
any  thing  in  him,  it  would  be  the  hurry  and  worry,  the  drive,  which  impels 
him  through  life — and  in  this  I  do  not  imagine  he  differs  from  the  average 
American  man  of  business — until,  like  one  of  his  own  engines  that  is  always 
worked  under  a  full  pressure  of  steam,  he  stops  running  at  last.  That  is  why 
we  see  so  many  old  men  of  thirty,  and  so  many  premature  gray  hairs  in  New 
England. 

But  what  I  chiefly  lament  is  the  disappearance  of  the  Yankee — not  the 
conventional  Yankee  of  the  theatre,  for  he  had  never  an  existence  elsewhere; 
but  the  hearty  yet  suspicious,  "  cute"  though  green,  drawling,  whittling,  un 
adulterated  Yankee,,  with  his  broad  humor,  delicious  patois,  and  large-hearted 
patriotism.  His  very  mother-tongue  is  forgotten.  Not  once  during  these 
rambles  have  I  heard  his  old  familiar  "I  swaow,"  or  "Git  aout,"  or  "Dew 
tell."1  Railway  and  telegraph,  factory  and  work-shop,  penetrating  into  the 


1  The  term  "Brother  Jonathan"  originated  with  Washington,  who  applied  it  to  Governor  Jon 
athan  Trumbull,  of  Connecticut.  When  any  important  matter  was  in  agitation  the  general  would 
say, "We  must  consult  Brother  Jonathan." 


SAYBROOK.  443 

most  secluded  hamlets,  have  rubbed  off  all  the  crust  of  an  originality  so  pro 
nounced  as  to  have  become  the  type,  and  often  the  caricature  too,  of  Amer 
ican  nationality  the  world  over. 

One  peculiarity  I  have  noticed  is  that  of  calling  spinsters,  of  whatever  age, 
"girls."  I  knew  two  elderly  maiden  ladies,  each  verging  on  three-score,  who 
were  universally  spoken  of  as  the  "  Young  girls,"  their  names,  I  should  perhaps 
explain,  being  Young.  Once,  when  in  quest  of  lodgings  in  a  strange  place,  I 
was  directed  to  apply  to  the  two  Brown  girls,  whose  united  ages,  as  I  should 
judge,  could  not  be  less  than  a  century  and  a  quarter.  But  one  is  not  to 
judge  of  New  England  girls  by  this  sample. 

Another  practice  which  prevails  in  some  villages  is  that  of  designating 
father  and  son,  where  both  have  a  common  Christian-name,  as  "Big  Tom" 
and  "Little  Tom;"  and  brother  and  sister  as  "Bub"  and  "Sis."  One  can 
hardly  maintain  a  serious  countenance  to  hear  a  stalwart  fellow  of  six  feet 
alluded  to  as  "Little"  Tom,  or  Joe,  or  Bill,  or  a  full-grown  man  or  woman  as 
"  Bub  "  or  "  Sis."  On  the  coast,  nicknames  are  current  principally  among  the 
sea-faring  element;  "Guinea  Bill"  or  "Portugee  Jack,"  presupposes  the  own 
er  to  have  made  a  voyage  to  either  of  those  distant  lands. 

The  Italians  count  the  whole  twrenty-four  hours,  beginning  at  half  an  hour 
after  sunset.  By  this  method  of  computation  I  reckoned  on  arriving  at  Say- 
brook  Point  at  exactly  twenty-two  o'clock.  I  walked  through  the  village 
leisurely  observant  of  its  outward  aspect,  which  was  that  of  undisturbed  tran 
quillity.  Modern  life  had  been  so  long  in  reaching  it,  that  it  had  been  willing 
to  accommodate  itself  to  the  old  houses,  and  so  far  to  the  old  life  of  the  place. 
The  toilets  here,  as  elsewhere,  encroached  in  many  instances  upon  those  of 
the  last  century,  and  were  wonderfully  like  the  portraits  one  sees  of  the  time. 
Xow,  let  us  have  the  old  manners  back  again. 

One  of  the  pleasnntest  old  houses  in  Saybrook  is  the  Hart  mansion,  which 
stands  in  the  main  street  of  the  village,  heavily  draped  by  the  foliage  of  three 
elm-trees  of  great  size  and  beauty.  It  was  a  favorite  retreat  of  that  gallant 
sailor,  Isaac  Hull,  who  lost  his  heart  there.1  Like  Nelson,  he  was  the  idol  of 
his  sailors,  for  he  was  as  humane  as  he  was  brave.  He  seldom  ordered  one 
of  his  old  sea-dogs  to  be  flogged,  but  would  call  a  culprit  before  him,  and 
after  scolding  him  soundly  with  affected  roughness  of  tone  and  manner,  would 
tell  him  to  return  to  his  duty.  The  Old  Ironsides  was  loved  with  a  love 
almost  like  that  which  man  bears  to  woman.  Ladies  would  have  kissed  the 
hem  of  her  sails ;  men  scraped  the  barnacles  from  her  bottom,  and  carried 
them  home  in  their  pockets.  I  have  seen  no  end  of  canes,  picture-frames,  and 

1  General  William  Hart,  an  old  soldier  of  the  Revolution,  was  a  wealthy  and  highly  esteemed 
citizen  of  Saybrook.  In  1795,  with  Oliver  Phelps  and  others,  he  purchased  the  tract  in  Ohio  called 
the  Western  Reserve.  The  Commodores  Hull,  uncle  and  nephew,  married  sisters  belonging  to 
this  family.  Commodore  Andrew  Hull  Foote  was  also  a  nephew  of  Commodore  Isaac  Hull,  whose 
widow  was  still  living  when  I  visited  Saybrook  in  1874. 


444 


THE  NEW  ENGLAND   COAST. 


ISAAC    HULL. 


other  souvenirs  of  this  famous  ship  treasured  by  fortunate  possessors;    and 
one  of  the  old  merchants  of  Boston  had  his  street  door  made  of  her  oak. 

Saybrook  is  languid.  It  is 
dispersed  along  one  broad  and 
handsome  street,  completely  can 
opied  by  an  arch  of  foliage.  You 
seem,  when  at  the  entrance,  to  be 
looking  through  a  green  tunnel. 
In  this  street  there  is  no  noise  and 
but  little  movement.  The  few 
shops  were  without  custom.  Af 
ter  the  spasm  of  activity  caused 
by  the  arrival  of  the  train — when 
it  seemed  for  the  moment  to  rub 
its  eyes  and  brisk  up  a  little, 
carriages  and  pedestrians  having 
mysteriously  disappeared  some 
where — the  old  town  dozed  again. 
The  Connecticut  is  here  tame 
and  uninteresting,  with  near 
shores  of  salt  -  marsh  flatness. 
Yellow  sand-bars,  green  hummocks,  or  jutting  points  skirted  with  pine- 
groves,  inclose  the  stream,  which  is  broad,  placid,  and  shallow.  There  are 
no  iron  headlands,  or  dangerous  reefs.  Nature  seems  quite  in  harmony  with 
the  general  quietude  and  restfuluess. 

A  few  years  ago  there  existed  at  the  Point  the  remains  of  a  colonial  for 
tress,  Vfith  much  history  clustering  around  it.  It  was  raised  in  the  very  in 
fancy  of  English  settlement  at  the  mouth  of  the  Connecticut ;  and  when  the 
Revolution  came,  the  old  dismounted  cannon,  that  had  perhaps  done  duty 
with  Howard  or  Blake,  were  again  placed  on  the  ramparts.  The  railway  peo 
ple  have  reduced  the  hill  on  which  it  stood  to  a  flat  and  dreary  gravel  waste.1 
This  is  \valking  into  antiquity  with  a  vengeance  !  It  is  perhaps  fortunate  that 
the  Coliseum,  Temple  Bar,  and  St.  Denis  are  not  where  they  would  be  valued 
for  the  cubic  yards  of  waste  material  they  might  afford. 

The  Dutch  anticipated  the  English  in  the  settlement  on  Connecticut  River. 
The  Hollanders  at  Fort  Amsterdam,  and  the  then  rival  colonies  of  Plymouth 
and  Massachusetts  Bay,  were  each  desirous  of  obtaining  a  foothold  which  each 
felt  too  weak  to  undertake  alone.  The  country  had  been  subjugated  by  the 
Pequots,  whose  territory  neither  colony  might  invade  without  bringing  the 
whole  nation  upon  them. 

1  The  eminence  on  which  'the  fort  stood,  also  called  Tomb  Hill,  jutted  into  the  river,  being 
united  to  the  shore  by  a  beach,  and  bordered  by  salt-marshes.  It  was  steep  and  unassailable  from 
any  near  vantage-ground.  In  1647  the  first  fort  was  accidentally  destroyed  by  fire. 


SAYBROOK.  445 

The  Dutch  were  also  first  to  visit  the  river,  and  to  inform  the  Pilgrims  of 
its  beauty  and  advantages  for  traffic.  In  1633,  Massachusetts  having  reject 
ed  overtures  for  a  joint  occupation,  Plymouth  determined  to  establish  a  trad 
ing-post  upon  the  river  without  her  aid.  Apprised  of  this  intention,  the 
Dutch  dispatched  an  expedition,  which  disembarked  where  Hartford  now  is. 
A'house  was  hastily  erected,  and  ordnance  mounted,  with  which  the  Holland 
ers  gave  notice  that  they  meant  to  keep  out  intruders. 

The  Plymouth  expedition,  under  command  of  William  Holmes,  ascended 
the  river,  and,  notwithstanding  an  attempt  to  stop  them,  passed  by  the  Dutch 
fort.  They  landed  at  Nattawanute,  afterward  Windsor,  and,  having  made 
themselves  secure,  sent  their  vessel  home.  Word  was  sent  to  Fort  Amster 
dam  of  the  invasion.  A  company  of  seventy  dispatched  to  the  scene  ad 
vanced  "brimful  of  wrath  and  cabbage,"  with  drums  beating  and  colors  fly 
ing,  against  the  English  fort.  Seeing  the  Pilgrims  were  in  nowise  discon 
certed,  the  Dutch  captain  ordered  a  halt ;  a  parley  took  place,  and,  having 
thus  vindicated  the  national  honor,  Gualtier  Twilley's  men  withdrew.1 

The  attempts  of  Plymouth  to  establish  tributary  plantations,  with  trad 
ing-posts,  at  the  extreme  eastern  and  western  limits  of  New  England,  were 
equally  disastrous.  Massachusetts  stood  quietly  by,  and  saw  her  rival  dis 
possessed  at  Penobscot,  but  at  Windsor  the  Plymouth  people  soon  found 
themselves  hemmed  in  between  settlements  made  by  emigrants  from  the  bay. 
As  a  quarrel  would  perhaps  have  been  alike  fatal  to  both,  Plymouth  gave 
way  to  her  more  powerful  neighbor! 

The  English  settlement  of  Connecticut  is  usually  assigned  to  the  year 
1635,  the  year  of  beginnings  at  Hartford,  Wethersfield,  and  Saybrook.  In  the 
autumn  the  younger  Winthrop  sent  a  few  men  to  take  possession  and  fortify 
at  the  mouth  of  the  Connecticut,  as  agent  of  Lords  Say,  Brook,  and  their  as 
sociate  owners  of  the  patent.3  This  expedition  forestalled  by  a  few  days 
only  a  new  attempt  to  obtain  possession  by  the  Dutch,  who,  finding  the  En 
glish  already  landed  and  having  cannon  mounted,  abandoned  their  design. 

Through  the  agency  of  the  celebrated  Hugh  Peters,  the  patentees  engaged, 
and  sent  to  New  England,  Lion  Gardiner,  a  military  engineer  who  had  served 
in  the  Low  Countries.  He  arrived  at  Boston  in  November,  1635,  and  pro 
ceeded  to  the  fort  at  the  mouth  of  the  Connecticut.  He  was  followed  by 
George  Fenwick,  sent  over  by  Lord  Say  to  be  resident  agent  of  the  English 

1  In  the  British  State  Paper  Office  is  a  translation  of  part  of  a  letter,  dated  at  Fort  Amsterdam, 
in  1633,  from  Gualtier  Twilley  to  the  governor  of  Massachusetts  Bay,  concerning  the  right  of  the 
Dutch  to  the  river.     The  governor  says  that  he  has  taken  possession  of  it  in  the  name  of  the  States 
General,  and  set  up  a  house  on  the  north  side,  with  intent  to  plant.     He  desires  Winthrop  will 
defer  his  claims  nntil  their  superior  magistrates  are  agreed.     The  word  "[Hudson?]"  is  placed 
after  "  river  "  in  the  calendars,  but  the  date  and  other  given  facts  are  probably  allusions  to  the  Con 
necticut  attempt. 

2  Lieutenant  Gibbons,  Sergeant  Willard,  and  some  carpenters. —"Lion  Gardiner's  Account." 


446 


THE  NEW  ENGLAND  COAST. 


proprietors.  Fen  wick,  accompanied  by  Peters,  reached  the  fort  in  the  spring. 
The  plantation  was  called  Saybrook,  as  a  compliment  to  the  two  principal 
personages  interested  in  its  founding. 

Saybrook  has  perhaps  acquired  a  certain  importance  in  the  eyes  of  histor 
ical  writers  to  which  no  other  spot  of  New  England's  soil  can  pretend.  There 
is  little  room  to  doubt  that  Lord  Say,  and  perhaps  some  of  his  associates, 
strongly  entertained  the  idea  of  removing  thither.1  A  more  debatable  asser 
tion,  which  is,  however,  well  fortified  with  authorities,  represents  Oliver  Crom 
well,  John  Hampden,  Pym,  and  Sir  Arthur  Haselrig  as  having  been  prevented 
from  embarking  only  by  an  express  order  from  the  king :  some,  indeed,  assert 
that  they  actually  embarked.2 

In  the  old  burial-place  of  Saybrook  Point  is  the  most  curious  sepulchral 

memorial  in  New  England.  I  can 
compare  it  with  nothing  but  a  Druid 
monument,  it  is  so  massy,  so  roughly 
shaped,  and  so  peculiar  in  form.  Un 
til  a  few  years  ago,  it  stood  within  a 
field  south-west  of  the  fort,  over  the 
dust  of  George  Fen  wick's  wife,  a 
woman  of  gentle  blood.  The  "  im 
provements"  made  by  the  railway  in 
this  vicinity  caused  the  removal  of 
the  monument  to  its  present  position. 
When  the  remains  of  Lady  Fenwick 
were  disinterred,  the  skeleton  was 
found  to  be  nearly  entire.  Beneath 
the  skull  was  lying  a  heavy  braid  of 
auburn  hair,  which  was  parceled  out  among  the  villagers.  My  informant  of 
fered  to  show  me  the  tress  that  had  fallen  to  his  share. 

I  acknowledge  it,  I  am  the  fool  of  association ;  and  when  I  see  the  spade 
thrust  among  graves,  I  wince  a  little.  I  would  have  Shakspeare's  appeal  and 
malediction  inscribed  over  the  entrance  to  every  old  grave-yard  in  New  En- 

1  See  the  correspondence  in  Hutchinson's   "History  of  Massachusetts,"  appendix,  vol.  i.,  be 
tween  John  Cotton  and  Lord  Say. 

2  There  is  nothing  improbable  in  the  story,  either  from  the  rank  or  political  importance  of  the 
personages  mentioned  ;   the  civil  commotions  in  England  rather  give  it  a  groundwork  of  probabil 
ity.     The  authorities  in  support  of  the  emigration  are  Dr.  George  Bates,  the  physician  of  Crom 
well,  in  his  "Elenchus  Maluum  Nuperorum  in  Anglia"  William  Lilly's  "Life  and  Times"  (Lon 
don,  1822),  Sir  William  Dugdale's  "Troubles  in  England,"  Mather's  "Magnalia,"  Oldmixon's 
"British  Empire  in  America,"  Neal's  "History  of  New  England,"  and  Hutchinson's  "History  of 
Massachusetts."     Hume,  Chalmers,  Grahame,  Hallam,  Russell,  Macaulay,  and- others  repeat  the 
story  with  various  modifications ;  Aiken,  Forster,  Bancroft,  Young,  and  others  deny  or  doubt  it. 
The  arguments  pro  and  con  may  be  consulted  in  the  "New  England  Historical  and  Genealogical 
Register  for  I860." 


A   MOSS-GKOWN    MEMORIAL. 


SAYBROOK.  44  * 

gland.  But,  after  all,  what  is  Shakspeare's  malediction  to  these  trouble- 
tombs  who  anticipate  the  Resurrection,  and  give  the  burial  service  the  lie. 
Our  bones  ache  at  the  thought  of  being  tossed  about  on  a  laborer's  shovel. 
Rather  come  cremation  than  mere  tenure  at  will  at  the  tender  mercies  of 
these  levelers.  When  we  have  been  "  put  to  bed  with  a  shovel,"  and  have 
pulled  our  green  coverlet  over  us,  let  us  have  the  peace  that  passeth  all  un 
derstanding. 

Not  much  is  known  of  Lady  Anne  Boteler,  or  Butler,  the  wife  of  George 
Fenwick.  It  is  surmised  that  she  died  in  childbed.  The  inscription  that  her 
monument  undoubtedly  bore  has  been  so  long  obliterated  that  no  record  re 
mains  of  it.  A  newer  one,  with  the  simple  name  and  date,  "Lady  Fenwick, 
died  1648,"  has  been  cut  in  the  perishable  sandstone.  Some  one  has  also 
caused  the  cross  to  be  chiseled  there.1  Considering  the  peculiar  aversion 
with  which  the  Puritans  regarded  the  cross,  the  appearance  of  one  on  the 
tombstone  of  Lady  Fenwick  is  suggestive  of  the  famous  prohibition  of  the 
cemetery  of  Saint  Medard : 

"De  par  le  roi,  defense  a  Dieu 
De  fa  ire  miracle  en  ce  lieu." 

Dr.  Dwight  states,  as  of  report,  that  Fenwick,  before  his  return  to  En 
gland,  made  provision  for  having  his  wife's  tomb  kept  in  repair.  The  sale  of 
the  title  of  Lords  Say  and  Brook  by  him,  in  1644,  to  Connecticut,  is  consid 
ered  evidence  as  well  of  the  existence  of  the  design  of  removal  alluded  to  as 
of  its  abandonment.  After  the  death  of  Lady  Fenwick  her  husband  returned 
to  England,  and  is  mentioned  as  one  of  the  regicide-judges.  He  subsequently 
appears  with  the  title  of  "colonel,"  and  is  believed  to  be  the  same  person 
who  besieged  Hume  Castle,  in  1650,  for  Cromwell.  On  being  summoned,  the 
governor  sent  his  defiance  in  verse : 

"I,  William  of  the  Wastle, 
Am  now  in  mv  Castle : 
And  aw  the  dogs  in  the  town 
Shanna  gar  me  gang  down."2 

The  English  at  Saybrook  Point  protected  the  land  approach  with  a  pali- 

1  Lech  ford,  in  his  "Plain  Dealing,"  says,  "There  are  five  or  six  townes  and  Churches  upon 
the  River  Connecticut  where  are  worthy  master  Hooker,  master  Wai-ham,  master  Hewet,  and 
divers  others,  and  master  Fenwike,  with  the  Lady  Boteler,  at  the  rivers  mouth  in  a  fuire  house, 
and  well  fortified,  and   one  master  Higgison,  a  young  man,  their  chaplain.     These  Plantations 
have  a  Patent;  the  Lady  was  lately  admitted  of  Master  Hooker's  Church,  and  thereupon  her  child 
was  baptized." 

2  Fenwick  "played  upon  him  "a  little  "with  the  great  guns,"  which  did  gar  him  gang  down 
more  fool  than  he  went  up. — CARLYLE.     Hutchinson  places  his  death  in  1G57.     There  was  a  Lieu 
tenant-colonel  Fenwick  killed  in  one  of  the  battles  between  Conde  and  Turenne,  in  Flanders,  in 
1G58.     The  action  occurred  before  Dunkirk.     Fenwick's  last  request  of  Lockhart,  the  English 
commander,  was  to  be  buried  in  Dunkirk. — THDRLOE,  vol.  i.,  p.  156. 


448  THE  *NEW  ENGLAND   COAST. 

sade  drawn  across  the  narrow  isthmus,  which  very  high  tides  overflowed  and 
isolated  from  the  main-land.  Their  corn-field  was  two  miles  distant  from  the 
fort,  and  skulking  Pequots  were  always  on  the  alert  to  waylay  and  murder 
them.  Some  of  the  Bay  magistrates  having  spoken  contemptuously  of  Indian 
arrows,  Gardiner1  sent  them  the  rib  of  a  man  in  which  one,  after  passing 
through  the  body,  had  buried  itself  so  that  it  could  not  be  withdrawn. 

Gardiner's  manner  of  dealing  with  Indians  was  peculiar.  When  the  ex 
pedition  against  the  Pequots  was  at  Saybrook  Fort,  distrusting  Mohegan 
faith,  he  resolved  to  make  a  trial  of  it.  He  therefore  called  Uncas  before  him, 
and  said,  "You  say  you  will  help  Major  Mason,  but  I  will  first  see  it;  there 
fore  send  you  now  twenty  men  to  the  Bass  River,  for  there  went  yesternight 
six  Indians  in  a  canoe  thither ;  fetch  them  now,  dead  or  alive,  and  then  you 
shall  go  with  Major  Mason,  else  not."  So  Uncas  sent  his  men,  who  killed 
four  and  captured  one,  the  sixth  making  his  escape. 

The  old  burial-ground  of  Saybrook  is  neat  and  well  kept.  Lady  Fen- 
wick's  monument  is  just  within  the  entrance,  concealed  by  a  clump  of  fir- 
trees.  Not  a  quarter  of  the  graves  have  stones,  and  that  part  of  the  ground 
occupied  by  the  ancients  of  the  village  is  so  mounded  and  overcrowded  that 
you  may  not  avoid  walking  upon  them.  In  another  spot  head-stones  jutted 
above  the  turf  at  every  variety  of  angle,  and  several  monuments  had  cavities, 
showing  where  they  had  been  robbed  of  leaden  coats  of  arms — to  run  into 
bullets,  perhaps.  All  are  of  ample  dimensions,  and  on  older  ones  creeping 
mosses  conceal  the  inscriptions.  The  variety  of  color  presented  by  slate, 
sandstone,  or  marble  upon  green  is  not  unpleasing  to  the  eye,  yet  those 
reckonings  scored  upon  slate  shall  endure  longest. 

In  the  Hart  inclosure  repose  the  ashes  of  the  once  beautiful  Jeannette  M. 
M.  Hart,  whose  slab  bears  the  symbol  of  her  faith.  She,  the  fairest  of  all  the 
sisters,  renounced  the  world  and,  embracing  the  Roman  faith,  became  a  nun. 
Her  remains  were  brought  home  from  Rome,  and  laid  to  rest  with  the  service 
of  the  Church  of  England.  In  a  little  separate  inclosure,  whispered  to  have 
been  consecrated  by  the  rite  of  Rome,  another  sister  is  lying.  When  Com 
modore  Hull  cruised  in  the  old  frigate  United  States,  one  of  these  beautiful 
girls  wras  on  board  his  ship.  She  was  seen  by  Bolivar,  who  fell  desperately 
in  love  with  her  at  a  ball,  and  became  so  attentive  that  the  American  officers 
believed  they  were  betrothed.2 

Saybrook  was  also  the   original  site  of  Yale  College,  fifteen  commence- 

1  Lion  Gardiner  became  the  owner  of  the  fertile  island  bearing  his  name  at  the  east  end  of  Long 
Island.     It  is  seven  miles  long  and  a  mile  broad,  with  excellent  soil.     Some  time  ago  its  peculiar 
beauty  and  salubrity  caused  it  to  be  called  the  Isle  of  Wight.     The  island,  I  believe,  still  remains 
in  the  possession  of  the  Gardiner  family.     For  many  years  it  descended  regularly  from  father  to 
son  by  entail.     The  Indian  name  was  Munshongonuc,  or  "the  place  of  Indian  graves." 

2  One  sister  married  Commodore  Hull,  as  related ;  another  married  Hon.  Heman  Allen,  minis 
ter  to  Chili ;  and  a  third,  Rev.  Dr.  Jarvis,  of  St.  Paul's,  Boston. 


SAYBROOK. 


449 


ments  having  occurred  here.  The  building,  which  was  of  a  single  story, 
stood  about  midway  between  fort  and  palisade.  Its  removal,  in  1718,  to  New 
Haven  occasioned  great  excitement,  and  the  library  had  to  be  carried  away 
under  the  protection  of  a  guard.  The  Saybrook  Platform,  so  called,  was 
adopted  here  after  the  commencement  of  1708.  Harvard  and  Yale  were  in 
infancy  probably  not  different  from  those  Scotch  universities  which  Dr.  John 
son  said  were  like  a  besieged  town,  where  every  man  had  a  mouthful,  but  no 
man  a  bellyful. 

The  shores  about  Saybrook  offer  little  that  is  noteworthy.  On  the  beach 
the  tide  softly  laps  the  incline  of  sand,  that  looks  like  a  slab  of  red  freestone, 
fine-grained  and  hard.  A  dry  spot  flashing  beneath  your  tread,  or  perhaps 
a  sea-bird  circling  above  your  head,  attends  your  loiterings. 

Look  now  off  upon  the  Sound,  where  the  golden  sunset  is  flowing  over  it, 
gilding  the  waves,  the  distant  shores,  and  the  sails  of  passing  vessels  with 
beams  that  in  dying  are  transfused  into  celestial  fires.  Idle  boats  are  rocked 
and  caressed  on  this  golden  sea.  Yonder  distant  gleam  is  a  light-house,  kin 
dled  with  heavenly  flame.  The  world  is  transfigured,  that  we  may  believe  in 
Paradise.  Soon  yellow  flushes  into  pale  crimson,  blending  with  a  sapphire 
sky.  Standing  on  the  strand,  we  are  transformed,  and  seem  to  quaff  of  the 
elixir  of  life.  Now  the  violet  twilight  deepens  into  sombre  shadows.  A 
spark  appears  in  the  farther  sea.  Soon  others  shine  out  like  glow-worms  in 
your  path;  while  twinkling  stars,  seen  for  a  moment,  disappear,  as  if  they,  too, 
revolved  for  some  more  distant  shore.  The  Sound  becomes  a  vague  and  heav 
ing  blackness.  And  now,  with  gentle  murmurings,  the  rising  tide  effaces  our 

wayward  foot-prints, 

29 


INDEX. 


A. 

Acadia,  New  England,  included  in,  18 ;  means 
taken  to  people,  25;  expatriation  of  the 
French,  303. 

Adams,  John,  resists  the  pretensions  of  the 
French  Directory,  378,  392. 

Agamenticus,  called  Snadoun  Hill,  21 ;  landfall 
of  early  navigators,  120  ;  ascent  of,  123;  mount 
ains  seen  from,  125. 

Agassiz,  Louis,  at  Mount  Desert,  48  ;  anecdotes 
of,  and  personal  appearance,  49. 

Alden,  John,  claimed  to  have  first  landed  on 
Plymouth  Rock,  290 ;  tradition  of  his  court 
ship,  300,  301. 

Alexander,  William  (Earl  of  Sterling),  islands 
in  his  patent,  339. 

Altbnse,  Jean,  cited,  18 ;  his  manuscripts  and  ac 
count  of  him,  22. 

Allerton,  Isaac,  at  Marblehead,  236. 

Appledore  Island,  160,  187. 

Argall.  Sir  Samuel,  his  descent  at  Mount  Desert 
Island,  24,  36. 

Arnold,  Governor  Benedict,  extract  from  his  will, 
371,  note. 

Arnold,  General  Benedict,  427;  anecdote  of,  427, 
428  ;  attacks  New  London,  428,  429 ;  birth 
place,  437. 

Aubert,  Thomas,  supposed  discovery  by.  21,  275. 

Audubon,  John  James,  at  Mount  Desert,  48. 

Auvergne,  Latour  de,  in  America,  396. 

Auvergne  regiment,  396. 


B. 

Badger's  Island,  149. 

Bald  Head  Cliff  (York,  Maine),  described,  115, 

116;  wreck  at,  117. 
Bar  Harbor,  visit  to,  43. 
Barton,  Colonel  William,  carries  off  General  Pres- 

cott,  409,  410. 
Basques,  on   the  New  England  coast,  125 ;   at 

Newfoundland,  126. 

Baye  Fransoise,  the  true  Frenchman's  Bay,  50. 
Beauchamp,  John,  mentioned,  60. 


Beaver  Tail  (Newport),  357,  381. 

Beaver,  the,  former  value  of,  41,  42. 

Beebe,  Rev.  George,  at  the  Shoals,  167. 

Belfast,  Maine,  name  of,  63,  note. 

Belknap,  Jeremy,  his  account  of  a  sand-ava 
lanche,  319. 

Berkeley,  George  (Bishop),  portrait  of,  368 ;  at 
Newport,  384. 

Bernard,  General  Simon,  Napoleon's  estimate  of, 
378,  379 ;  in  the  United  States,  379 ;  builds 
Fortress  Monroe  and  Fort  Morgan,  379,  note. 

Biard,  Pere,  arrives  at  Port  Royal,  35  ;  at  Mount 
Desert,  35. 

Billington,  John,  executed  at  Plymouth,  267. 

Biron,  Due  de  Lauzun,  394. 

Blauw,  or  Blaeuv  Guillaume,  atlas  cited,  21. 

Block  Island,  421.   See  note. 

Blue-berries,  their  value  in  New  England,  39  ; 
humors  of  the  pickers,  120. 

Blue-fish,  singular  disappearance  of,  344. 

Blythe,  Captain  Samuel,  killed,  107. 

Body  of  Laws,  extracts  from,  268. 

Bon  Temps,  order  of,  95,  96. 

Boon  Island,  wreck  of  the  Nottingham,  172,  173. 

Boteler,  Lady  Anne.    See  Fenwick. 

Bradford,  William,  his  manuscript  history  of 
Plymouth,  268 ;  monument  at  Plymouth,  277; 
284,  285,  286,  290,  note,  291 ;  receives  Massa- 
soit,  293,  294 ;  account  of  Cape  Cod,  307. 

Brevoort,  J.  Carson,  359,  note. 

Brigadier's  Island,  ownership  and  fishery  at,  64. 

Brock,  Rev.  John,  anecdote  of,  163. 

Brodhead,  John  Romeyn,  mentioned,  22,  note, 
278. 

Bromfield,  Major,  kills  Colonel  Ledyard,  428. 

Brother  Jonathan,  origin  of  the  name,  442,  note. 

Broughton,  Nicholas,  251. 

Brown,  Dexter,  establishes  first  stage-coach  be 
tween  Boston  and  Providence,  411. 

Brown,  Robert,  founder  of  Brownists,  280,  note. 

Brown's  Island  (Plymouth),  disappearance  of, 
295. 

Bull,  Governor  Henry,  burial-place  of,  405,  note. 

Burroughs,  George,  at  Wells,  111. 

Burrows,  Lieutenant  William,  killed,  107. 


452 


INDEX. 


Cabot,  Sebastian,  voyage  of,  20. 

Camdeu    Mountains,   approach   to,  62 ;    Indian 

name  of,  93. 

Canonical  Island,  visited,  380.    See  note. 
Cape  Ann,  fishery  at,  157. 
Cape  Arundel,  spouting-horn  at,  47. 
Cape  Breton,  early  knowledge  of,  21. 
Cape  Cod,  a  coup  d'ceil  of,  304-306 ;  early  ac 
counts  of,  307  ;  Poutrincourt's  fight  at,  308  ; 
ship  canal  begun  from  Barnstable  to  Buzzard's 
Bay,  311,  note;  harbors  frozen  hi  1875,320; 
changes  in  its  exterior  shores,  322,  323. 

Cape  Cod  Harbor  (Provincetown). 

Cape  Neddock,  122. 

Capuchins,  at  Pentagoet,  81 ;  Napoleon's  opinion 
of,  82. 

Carder,  Jacques,  sails  for  America,  20 ;  manner 
of  taking  possession  of  Canada,  23. 

Carver,  John,  supposed  burial-place,  276. 

Carver,  Nathaniel,  Lord  Nelson's  generous  act  to, 
271. 

Castin,  the  younger,  kidnaped,  81 ;  returns  to 
France,  81. 

Castin,  Jean  Vincent,  Baron  de,  sketch  of,  79, 
80 ;  in  the  attack  on  Pemaquid,  98. 

Castine,  approach  to,  64,  65 ;  views  from  Fort 
George,  65  ;  seized  and  fortified  by  the  British, 
67 ;  besieged,  68,  69 ;  Indian  name  of,  67 ; 
Fort  Pentagoet  described,  74 ;  singular  dis 
covery  of  coins  at,  74,  75 ;  its  early  history 
sketched,  76-82  ;  old  cemetery  of,  84. 

Cedar  Island,  160. 

Chambly,  M.  de,  made  prisoner  at  Pentagoet,  78. 

Champernowne,  Arthur,  149. 

Champernowne,  Francis,  149. 

Champlain,  Samuel,  quoted,  18;  title  of  his 
map,  22.  note ;  names  Mount  Desert,  28  ;  voy 
age  of  1604,  92,  93  ;  suggests  "  L'Ordre  de 
Bon  Temps,"  95 ;  descries  Isles  of  Shoals,  122  ; 
description  of  Plymouth  Bay,  274,  275 ;  at 
Cape  Cod,  308  ;  account  of  Indian  fishing,  314. 

Channing,  William  Ellery,  400,  note. 

Charlevoix's  account  of  siege  of  Fort  William 
Henry,  99. 

Chasteliux,  Marquis,  394. 

Chilton,  Mary,  tradition  about,  291. 

Chouacouet.     See  Saco  River. 

Christmas,  how  observed  in  Plymouth,  292. 

Chubb,  Pascho,  surrenders  the  fort  at  Pemaquid, 
99. 

Church,  Colonel  Benjamin,  at  Castine,  75,  302, 
372. 

Church,  F.  E.,  anecdote  of,  50. 

Clark,  D.Wasgatt,  a  native  of  Mount  Desert,  49. 

Clark's  Island  (Plymouth),  269;    sail  to,  295; 


Watson  House,  297 ;  Election  Rock,  297,  298  ; 

landing  of  the  exploring  party,  298. 
linton,  Sir  Henry,  outgeneraled  by  Washington, 

428. 

Cob-money,  specimens  found  at  Castine,  75,  note. 
Cod-fish  aristocracy,  origin  of  the  appellation, 

314. 
Cod-fishery  in  the  sixteenth  century,  156 ;  in  the 

seventeenth,  232-236  ;  at  Provincetown,  313, 

314. 
Coddington,  William,  sketch  of,  360 ;   at  Anne 

Hutchinson's  trial,  361 ;  decay  of  his  family, 

362  ;   burial-place  of,  405. 
Coffin,  Sir  Isaac,  founds  a  school  at  Nantucket, 

341,  342. 
Coggeshall,  John,  at  Anne  Hutchinson's  trial, 

361 ;  monument  to,  405. 
Colbert  mentioned,  78,  82. 
Collins,  Captain  Gamaliel,  316. 
Colonial  society  described,  60. 
Connecticut  River,  settlements  on,  444,  445,  446. 
Constitution,  frigate,  chased  into   Marblehead, 

256. 

Corey,  Giles,  pressed  to  death,  227. 
Corwin,  Jonathan,  a  witch-judge,  223. 
Cousin,  Captain,  story  of  his  discovery  of  Amer 
ica,  22. 

Cradock,  Governor  Matthew,  establishes  fishing- 
station  at  Marblehead,  236. 
Cranberry,  the,  growth  and  culture  of,  39,  317. 
Cranberry  Islands,  39. 
Cromwell,  Oliver,   his    proposed   emigration   to 

New  England,  446. 

Cushman,  Charlotte,  residence  at  Newport,  375. 
Cushman,  Robert,  277. 
Cushman,  Thomas,  277. 
Cutts,  Captain  Joseph,  143. 
Cutts,  Sarah  Chauncy,  sad  story  of,  142,  143. 
Cutty  hunk,  first  English  colony  at,  327.    See  note. 

D. 

Damariscotta,  oyster-shell  heaps  at,  visited  and 

described,  100,  101. 

Daniel,  Father,  his  history  mentioned,  23. 
Dartmouth  Indians  sold  as  slaves,  302. 
D'Aulnay   Charnisay   (Charles   de   Menou),   at 

Pentagoet,  76 ;   imbroglio  with  La  Tour,  77 ; 

his  death,  78. 

Dean,  John  Ward,  173,  note. 
Deane,  John,  173. 

Deane,  Silas,  Mr.  Adams's  opinion  of,  431. 
Decatur,  Stephen,  blockaded  at  New  London, 

432  ;   duel  with  Barron,  433.     See  note. 
De  Costa,  B.  F.,  mentioned,  22,  note. 
De  Monts,  efforts   of.  to   obtain    colonists,  25 ; 

cedes   his   privileges   in  Acadia,  34,  35 ;    his 


INDEX. 


453 


commission  and  privileges,  153-155;  descries 
the  Isles  of  Shoals,  155;  in  Plymouth  Bay, 
273,  274,  275. 

Dermer,  Captain  Thomas,  at  Nantucket,  324. 

Dcnix-Ponts,  Count  Christian,  anecdote  of,  395. 
See  note. 

D'Iberville,  makes  a  demonstration  against  Pem- 
aquid,  97;  captures  Fort  William  Henry,  98. 
See  note. 

Dighton  Rock,  inscription  attributed  to  North 
men,  369,  416,  417,  418. 

Dorr  Rebellion,  365,  note. 

Doty  or  Doten,  Edward,  fights  a  duel,  266,  297, 
note. 

Douglass,  William,  quoted,  23,  24. 

Down  East,  an  undiscovered  country,  85,  86. 

Drake,  Sir  Bernard,  manner  of  his  death,  24. 

Dretiillettes,  Pere  Gabriel,  at  Plymouth,  285. 

Duck  Island,  160,  190. 

Dummer,  Shubael,  minister  of  York,  135. 

Dumplings,  fort  on,  358,  380,  381. 

Dunbar,  Colonel  David,  at  Pemaquid,  100. 

Dutch  Island,  380. 

Du  Thet,  Gilbert,  killed  at  Mount  Desert,  36. 

Duxbury,  sail  to,  from  Plymouth,  299  ;  Cap 
tain's  Hill  and  monument,  300 ;  historic  per 
sonages  of  Duxbury,  300,  et  seq. 

Dwight,  Timothy,  at  Newport,  370. 

E. 

Ellery,  William,  his  death,  400. 

Endicott,  Governor  John,  his  farm,  218,  255. 

Estaing,  Count  de,  at  Newport,  387 ;  guillotined, 

388. 
Excommunication   in   New   England   churches, 

280,  281,  note. 

F. 

Faunce,  Thomas,  identifies  Plymouth  Rock,  289, 

note. 

Fenwick,  George,  445,  446,  447. 
Fenwick,  Lady,  her  remarkable  monument,  446  ; 

her  story,  447. 

Fillmore,  John,  exploit  of,  176. 
Fisher's  Island,  420,  422,  note. 
Fl ticker,  Lucy,  marries  General  Knox,  61. 
Fly,  William,  the  pirate,  177,  178. 
Forefather's  Day,  its  true  date  and  significance, 

290. 
Fort  Adams,  358  ;  Fort  Day,  377 ;  history  of  the 

fortress,  377,  378. 
Fort  Constitution,  Great  Island,  New  Hampshire, 

199,  200. 

Fort  Fenwick,  Snybrook,  444,  445. 
Fort  Frederick,  Pemaquid,  described,  96. 
Fort  George,  Castine,  described,  66 ;    siege  of,  | 


67,  68,  69  ;  imprisonment  and  escape  of  Gen 
eral  Wadsworth  and  Major  Burton,  70,  71. 

Fort  Griswold,  422.  See  note ;  assault  on,  428, 
429.  See  note. 

Fort  M 'Clary,  144. 

Fortress  Monroe,  379. 

Fort  Morgan,  Mobile,  379,  note. 

Fort  Pentagoer,  Castine,  described,  73,  74. 

Fort  Point,  site  of,  63,  66. 

Fort  Sewall,  Marblehead,  255. 

Fort  Trumbull,  422.     See  note,  428. 

Fort  William  Henry,  Pemaquid,  description  and 
importance  of,  97 ;  captured  by  D'Iberville, 
99. 

Fort  Wolcott,  358.     See  note. 

Fox,  George,  at  Newport,  403 ;  denounces  the 
New  England  magistrates,  403.  See  note. 

Frankland,  Sir  -Charles,  romantic  marriage  of, 
256. 

Franklin,  Benjamin,  341. 

Fremont,  General  John  C.,  mentioned,  43. 

Friday  not  an  unlucky  day,  26. 

Funeral  customs,  ancient,  136. 


G. 

•Gardiner's  Island,  448,  note. 

Gardiner,  Lion,  at  Saybrook,  445,  448.  See  note. 

Garrison-houses  described,  139,  140. 

Gay  Head,  Indian  legend  of,  349. 

George  III.,  cause  of  his  insanity,  394. 

Gerrish's  Island,  149. 

Gerry,  Elbridge,  249,  250. 

Gerrymander,  the,  origin  of,  250,  note. 

Gibson,  James,  146. 

Gilbert,  Raleigh,  with  Popham's  colony,  93. 

Gilbert,  Sir  H.,  method  of  taking  possession  of 
Newfoundland,  23. 

Glover,  General  John,  anecdote  of,  253 ;  tomb 
of,  259. 

Goat  Island,  Newport,  358. 

Gorgeana.     See  Old  York. 

Gorges,  Sir  F.,  notice  of  Weymouth's  voyage, 
92  :  plantation  at  Agamenticus.  Old  York,  131, 
et  seq. 

Gorges,  Ferdinando,  son  of  Thomas,  131. 

Gorges,  Robert,  133. 

Gorges,  Thomas,  mayor  of  Gorgeana,  131. 

Gorges,  Captain  William,  131. 

Great  Head  Cliff,  Mount  Desert,  50. 

Great  Island.     See  Newcastle. 

Gregoire,  Madame,  at  Mount  Desert,  56. 

Gridley,  Richard,  at  Louisburg,  147. 

Groton,  the  battle  monument,  427 ;  British  at 
tack  on,  426;  the  Pequots  destroyed,  429,  430. 

Guercheville,  Madame  de,  attempts  to  colonize 
Mount  Desert,  34,  35,  36. 


454 


INDEX. 


H. 

Hakluyt,  Richard,  quoted,  19.  _ 

Hale,  Rev.  John,  on  witchcraft,  214. 

Haley's  Island.     See  Smutty  Nose. 

Haley,  Samuel,  175  ;  his  epitaph,  183. 

Hamilton,  Lady  Emma,  433. 

Hancock,  Dorothy  Quincy,  204,  205. 

Hardy,  Sir  Thomas  Masterman,  off  New  Lon 
don,  432 ;  declines  a  duel  of  ships,  433 ;  at 
Nelson's  death-bed,  433. 

Harrison,  Peter,  360.     See  note. 

Hart,  General  William,  433.     See  note. 

Hawkins,  Thomas,  the  pirate,  176. 

Hawthorne,  Nathaniel,  birthplace  of,  221. 

Hebrews  at  Newport,  366,  367. 

Hempstead,  Sir  Robert,  425. 

Henrietta  d'Orleans  poisoned,  56. 

Henry  IV. 's  projects  in  the  New  World,  20;  as 
sassinated,  35. 

Herring  Cove,  319,  320. 

Hessians  at  Newport,  380,  381. 

Higginson,  Francis,  account  of  Salem,  etc.,  241. 

Hilton,  Martha,  romantic  story  of,  205,  206. 

Hilton,  Richard,  205.     See  note. 

Hog  Island.     See  Appledore. 

Holmes's  Hole,  327,  note. 

Hontvet,  John,  heroism  of  his  wife,  185. 

Hopkins,  Dr.  Samuel,  406. 

Howe,  Richard,  Earl,  naval  action  with  D'Es- 
taing,  388. 

Rowland's  Ferry,  413,  note. 

Hull,  Commodore  Isaac,  443,  444. 

Hull,  General  William,  mentioned,  56. 

Humphries,  Joshua,  report  on  establishing  a 
dock-yard  at  Newport,  378. 

Huntington,  General  Eben,  438,  439. 

Huntington,  General  Jedidiah,  438. 

Huntington,  Governor  Samuel,  439. 

Hutchinson,  Anne,  her  trial  and  banishment, 
361,  362. 


I. 


Ireson,  Benjamin  (called  Flood),  of  Marblehead, 
story  of,  253,  254. 

Isle  au  Haut,  named,  29. 

Isle  Nauset,  total  disappearance  of,  322. 

Isle  of  Rhodes.     See  Rhode  Island. 

Isles  of  Shoals,  De  Monts  sees  them,  155 ;  de 
scribed  by  Smith  and  Levett,  155, 156 ;  advan 
tages  for  fishery,  157 ;  sail  from  Portsmouth, 
158;  isles  described,  160,  see  note;  their  name, 
161 ;  general  aspect  of,  162  5  Star  Island  ram 
bles,  162,  et  seq. ;  semi-barbarous  condition  of 
ancient  Gosport,  164, 165;  burial-grounds,  166, 
167 ;  caverns  and  cliffs,  168, 169, 170 ;  Miss  Un 


derbill's  chair,  170, 171 ;  mountains  seen  off  the 
coast,  172,  note;  dun-fish,  174  ;  Smutty  Nose, 
175 ;  piracy  in  colonial  time,  176-179  ;  Black- 
beard,  178  ;  Thomas  Morton,  Gent.,  180, 181 ; 
Samuel  Haley,  183;  the  Spanish  wreck,  184; 
Wagner,  the  murderer,  185,  186 ;  Appledore, 
186-190;  Duck  Island,  190;  Londoner's,  191 ; 
White  Island  Light,  192. 


J. 

Jackson,  Andrew,  151. 

Jeffrey's  Ledge,  161. 

Jesuits,  persecutions  by,  82  ;  intrigues  of,  82,  83. 

Jones,  Margaret,  executed  as  a  witch,  210. 

Jourdan,  Jean  Baptiste,  Marshal  of  France,  at 

Newport,  388. 
Judson,  Adoniram,  277. 


K. 

Kadesquit,  probably  Kenduskeag,  35. 

Kalb,  Baron  de,  in  New  England  on  a  secret 
mission,  387. 

Kennebec  River,  discovery  and  name,  92. 

King,  Charles  Bird,  368. 

Kittery  Point,  named,  141,  note ;  the  Cutts 
House,  142;  Fort  M 'Clary,  144;  the  Pepper- 
ells,  144,  et  seq.;  Pepperell  tomb,  147;  Ger- 
rish's  Island,  149  ;  other  islands,  149 ;  John 
Langdon,  150,  151. 

Knox,  General  Henry,  connection  with  Waldo 
patent,  61 ;  involves  General  Lincoln,  62. 


Lafayette,  390  ;  at  Newport,  391. 

Laighton,  Thomas  B.,,192. 

Langdon,  John,  anecdotes  of,  150,  151,  200,  note. 

La  Peyrouse  in  America,  71. 

La  Tour,  Aglate,  sells  the  seigniory  of  Acadia,  78. 

La    Tour,   Chevalier,    mentioned,   76 ;    troubles 

with  D'Aulnay,  77,  78. 
Lawrence,  Captain  James,  death  of,  257. 
Lee,  General  Charles,  at  Newport,  356,  note,  404. 
Lee,  Colonel  Jeremiah,  sketch  of,  245. 
Lee,  John,  247. 
Lee,  William  Raymond,  247. 
Leffingwell,  Thomas,  relieves  Uncas,  436. 
Leonard  Forge,  Taunton,  419. 
Lescarbot,  Marc,  his  criticism  of  Alfonse,  18 : 

quoted,  58. 
Levett,   Christopher,  mentioned,  96 ;    describes 

Agamenticus,  131 ;  at  Isles   of  Shoals,  155, 

156,  161 ;  notice  of  Plymouth,  273. 
Leverett,  John,  a   Muscongus   patentee,  60 ;  at 

Pentagoet,  78. 


INDEX. 


455 


Lincoln,  General  Benjamin,  sketch  of,  Cl. 

Livermore,  Samuel,  attempts  to  shoot  Captain 
Broke,  257. 

Lobsters,  process  of  canning  for  market,  84 ; 
facts  about,  85. 

Longfellow,  Hon.  Stephen,  71. 

Long  Island  Sound,  421. 

Londoner's  Island,  160,  191. 

Louis  XIV.  marries  De  Maintenon,  82  ;  opinion 
of  La  Salle's  discoveries,  83. 

Lovell,  Solomon,  commands  in  Penobscot  expe 
dition,  08 ;  retreats,  69. 


M. 

Mackerel,  habits  of,  91. 

Macy,  Thomas,  settles  at  Nantucket,  339. 

•'  Magnalia,"  Mather's,  Southey's  opinion  of,  93. 

Maine,  sea-coast  of,  17,  18;  embraces  Norum- 
bega,  Mavoshen,  18 ;  other  names  applied  to 
her  territory,  18 ;  French  occupation  of,  18 ; 
her  enterprise  and  products,  60 ;  part  of  Mas 
sachusetts,  68. 

Maintenon,  Madame  de,  intrigue  with  the  Jesu 
its,  82,  83. 

Malaga  Island,  100. 

Malbone,  Colonel  Godfrey,  408,  409. 

Malbone,  Edward  G.,  409. 

Mananas  Island,  104. 

Manly,  John,  251,  252. 

Mansell,  Sir  Robert,  mentioned,  34. 

Marblehead,  its  conformation  and  topography, 
228,  229,  230,  231 ;  Lafayette  there,  229  ;  isl 
ands  off  the  port,  231 ;  the  Neck,  231 ;  annals 
and  decay  of  the  cod-fishery,  232,  233,  234, 
235;  early  settlement,  236,  241,  242;  de 
scribed,  238,  239,  240,  241 ;  character  of  early 
fishermen,  243;  Goelet's  account,  243;  Lee 
Mansion,  245,  240;  St.  Michael's,  248;  the 
old  sea-lions,  251,  252  ;  the  dialect,  254  ;  Fort 
Sewall,  255 ;  Chesapeake  and  Shannon,  256, 
257 ;  old  burial  -  ground,  258  ;  perils  of  the 
fishery,  259,  260. 

Marriage,  first,  in  New  England,  285. 

Mashope,  legend  of,  349. 

Mason,  Captain  John,  201. 

Mason,  John,  attacks  the  Pequot  stronghold,  429, 
note,  430. 

Massachusetts  Bay,  alleged  discovery  of,  18,  22. 

Massachusetts  Historical  Society,  motive  of  its 
founding,  147. 

Massasoit,  entry  into  Plymouth,  293,  294. 

Masse,  Enemond,  at  Mount  Desert,  35. 

Mavoshen,  Maine,  so  styled,  18. 

Mayhew,  Thomas,  purchases  Nantucket,  339 ; 
owns  Martha's  Vineyard  and  Elizabeth  Isl 
ands,  340. 


May-pole,  ancient  custom  of,  182. 

M 'Clary,  Andrew,  144. 

M'Lean,  Colonel  Francis,  seizes  and  fortifies 
Castine,  67. 

Mercator,  atlas  of,  cited,  21. 

Miantonimo  makes  war  on  Uncas,  435  ;  is  killed. 
436. 

Miantonimo  Hill,  407,  408. 

Mohegan  Indians,  436,  437. 

Monhegan  Island,  probably  seen  and  named  in 
1604,  92,  102;  early  knowledge  of,  102;  de 
scribed,  104  ;  inscription  at,  106  ;  naval  battle 
near,  106, 107,  324. 

Moody,  Joseph,  Handkerchief,  135. 

Moody,  Rev.  Samuel,  anecdote  of,  135 ;  epitaph. 
136. 

Moore,  Sir  John,  at  Castine,  67 ;  Napoleon's 
opinion  of,  08. 

Morse,  Rev.  Jedediah,  at  the  Shoals,  104 ;  de 
scribes  curing  fish,  174. 

Morse,  S.  F.  B.,  paints  Landing  of  Pilgrims,  204. 

Morton,  Thomas,  his  banishment,  180, 1,81. 

Mount  Desert  Island,  discovered  and  named. 
28  ;  Champlain's  description  of,  29  ;  mountain 
ranges,  29-32 ;  approach  from  Ellsworth,  31 ; 
first  settlers,  33 ;  road  to  South-west  Harbor. 
33,  34  ;  French  colony  on,  34,  35,  30 ;  shell - 
heaps  at,  37;  neighborhood  of  South-west 
Harbor,  38,  39 ;  islands  off  Somes's  Sound. 
39 ;  Christinas  on,  40,  et  seq. ;  route  to  Bar 
Harbor,  41,  42  ;  island  nomenclature,  42 ;  isl 
ands  off  Bar  Harbor,  43 ;  shore  rambles  to 
Schooner  Head  and  Great  Head,  43-48 ;  nat 
uralists  and  artists  who  have  visited,  48-50: 
excursion  to  Otter  Creek  and  North-east  Har 
bor,  53,  54 ;  the  Ovens,  etc.,  55,  50. 

Mount  Desert  Rock,  53. 

Mount  Hope,  414,  415,  416. 

Mugford,  Captain  James,  252,  253,  259. 

Muscongus  patent,  history  of,  60,  61. 


N. 

Nantucket,  its  early  discovery,  324 ;  name,  325. 
341 ;  voyage  to,  326,  327 ;  the  town  described. 
328,  329,  330  ;  whales,  ships,  and  whaling. 
331-334 ;  Nantucket  in  the  Revolution,  335 ; 
cruising  for  whales,  335 ;  the  camels,  330 : 
whaling  annals,  330,  337  ;  white  settlement  of 
the  island,  339,  340,  341 ;  Coffin  school  and 
Admiral  Sir  Isaac  Coffin,  342  ;  black-fishing. 
343,  344  ;  blue-fishing  at  the  Opening,  344, 
345,  340  ;  Coatue,  347 ;  Indian  legends,  349 ; 
Indian  absolutism,  350  ;  wasting  of  the  shores, 
350;  Siasconset,  351,  352;  the  great  South 
Shoal,  353 ;  Sankoty  Head,  354 ;  Surfside, 
354. 


456 


INDEX. 


Narraganset  Bay,  Verrazani's  supposed  sojourn 
in,  359. 

Nautican  or  Nauticon.     See  Nantucket. 

Nelson,  Horatio,  Lord,  chivalric  conduct  of,  395. 
See  note ;  death-scene  of,  433. 

Nelson,  John,  important  services  of,  98. 

Newcastle,  196,  et  seq. ;  the  Fool,  197  ;  old  char 
ter  and  records,  198,  199  ;  Little  Harbor,  200. 

New  England  of  ancient  writers,  17-27 ;  early 
names  of,  18,  19  ;  first  called  New  England, 
20 ;  attempts  to  colonize,  24  ;  quality  of  emi 
gration  to,  25  ;  patents  of,  133  ;  supposed  visit 
of  Northmen,  369,  note. 

Newfoundland,  English  occupation  of,  23 ;  seiz 
ures  of  Portuguese  at,  24  ;  Basques  at,  126  ; 
fisheries  of,  156. 

New  France,  New  England  included  in,  20,  21. 

New  London,  sail  up  the  Thames,  422 ;  the  town 
and  its  beginnings,  422,  423  ;  light-houses  and 
light-ships.  423,  424  ;  Hempstead  House,  425  ; 
Court  -  house,  424  ;  old  burial-ground,  426 ; 
the  harbor,  426 ;  Arnold's  descent,  428,  429. 

Newport  Artillery,  363,  364. 

Newport,  the  old  town,  356,  et  seq. ;  its  climate, 
357 ;  approach  from  sea,  357,  358 ;  its  com 
merce,  359 ;  street  rambles,  359-372 ;  City 
Hall,  360  ;  Coddington's  Cove,  362  ;  the  Wan 
tons,  362,  363  ;  State  House,  363,  364  ;  Jews' 
cemetery,  365,  366,  367 ;  Redwood  Library, 
367,  368 ;  Old  Stone  Mill,  369,  370,  371,  372; 
Cliff  Walk,  373,  et  seq. ;  Forty  Steps,  374 ; 
cottage  life  at  the  sea-side,  375 ;  Lily  Pond, 
Spouting  Hock,  and  Brenton's  Reef,  376  ;  Fort 
Adams  and  Fort  Day,  377,  378,  379  ;  Napo 
leon's  engineer,  378,  379 ;  Dumplings,  380 ; 
Hessians,  381 ;  the  drives,  381, 382 ;  the  beach 
es  and  Purgatory,  382,  383 ;  Hanging  Rock 
and  Whitehall,  384  ;  the  French  occupation, 
386,  et  seq.;  French  diplomacy,  387  ;  attack  of 
D'Estaing,  387,  388  ;  celebrities  of  the  French 
army  and  navy,  388-397  ;  Rhode  Island  cem 
etery,  398,  et  seq.;  Quaker  annals.  401,  et  seq.; 
other  burial-places,  405,  406. 

Noailles,  Viscount  de,  391,  392. 

Norembegue.     See  Norumbega. 

North,  Lord,  how  he  received  the  news  of  Corn- 
wallis's  surrender,  393. 

Northmen,  supposed  voyage  to  New  England, 
369,  note. 

Norton,  Francis,  settles  at  Agamenticus,  131. 

Norumbega,  river  and  country  of,  18,  19,  21 ;  ex 
plored  by  Champlain.  28. 

Norwich,  approach  to,  434  ;  the  Mohegans,  435, 
436,  437;  the  town,  439,  440,  441. 

Nubble,  The,  not  Savage  Rock,  120. 

Nurse,  Rebecca,  executed  for  witchcraft,  213,  224, 
226. 


0. 

Oak  Bluffs,  cottage  city  at,  375. 

Odiorne's  Point,  first  settlement  of  New  Hamp 
shire  at,  200. 

Ogunquit  described,  114,  115. 

Old  Colony,  seal  of,  267. 

Oldliam,  John,  his  ingenious  punishment  at  Plym 
outh,  286,  287  ;  killed,  421. 

Old  South  Church,  Boston,  New  England,  library 
in,  plundered,  268. 

Old  Stone  Mill,  Newport,  369,  370,  371,  372. 

Orleans,  ancient  wreck  discovered  at,  322. 

Ortelius,  map  of,  19,  20. 

Otis,  James,  at  Plymouth,  288. 


P. 

Paddock,  Ichabod,  teaches  Nantucket  men  how 
to  take  whales,  315. 

Parris,  Samuel,  witch-finders  at  his  house,  213 ; 
his  minutes  of  examination,  224. 

Peabody,  George,  218. 

Pease,  Samuel,  fight  with  pirates,  176. 

Pemaquid  Point,  visit  to,  87,  et  seq.;  British  de 
scent  at,  repulsed,  89 ;  porgee  fishery  at,  89, 90 ; 
early  history.  92-101 ;  Weymouth,  at,  92  ;  Fort 
Frederick,  at,  96,  97  ;  other  fortifications,  97 ; 
Fort  William  Henrv,  at,  captured,  99  ;  ancient 
settlement  at,  100 ;  Indians  kidnaped  by  Wey 
mouth,  105. 

Pemetiq.     See  Mount  Desert. 

Pentagoet,  meaning  of  the  name,  19,  note ;  on 
Blauw's  map,  21 ;  how  settled,  25.  See  Cas- 
tine. 

Penobscot  Bay  and  River,  Champlain's  account 
of,  18,  19;  called  Pemetegoit,  19:  meaning  of 
name,  19,  note ;  called  Pembrock's  Bay,  21 ; 
Smith's  account  of,  24 ;  approach  to  in  a  fog, 
58,  59  ;  described,  63,  64. 

Penobscot  Expedition,  history  of,  68,  69. 

Pepperell,  Andrew,  his  affair  with  Hannah  Wal 
do,  61. 

Pepperell,  Sir  William,  61 ;  sketch  and  residence 
Of5  144^47  ;  portrait  of,  145,  146 ;  his  tomb, 
147;  Pepperell  William,  Sen.,  188. 

Perry,  Oliver  Hazard,  363 ;  monument  to,  401, 
404. 

Peters,  Hugh,  445. 

Philip,  King,  349  ;  seat  at  Mount  Hope,  414 ;  his 
capture,  416. 

Phips,  Sir  William,  builds  Fort  William  Henry, 
97 ;  his  connection  with  witchcraft,  210 ;  ac 
cusation  of  his  wife,  214. 

Pigot,  Sir  Robert,  defends  Newport,  387. 

Pilgrims,  the,  not  strictly  Puritans,  280 ;  their 
church,  280,  281,  282  ;  land  at  Cape  Cod,  307. 


INDEX. 


45' 


Pillory,  one  described,  365. 

Piscataqua,  capture  proposed,  80;  sail  down, 
151) ;  Earl  Bellomont's  opinion  of,  197. 

Plymouth  Bay.  26S.  274,  275. 

Plymouth  Beach,  2G9. 

Plymouth,  on  Smith's   map,  21 ;   establishes   a 
trading-house  at  Castine,  76;  dispossessed,  76, 
77;   the  colony  patents,  133;   Plymouth  de 
scribed,  262;    Pilgrim   memorials,   263-267; 
pictures  of  the  "Landing,"'  264;  first  duel  at 
Plymouth,  266 ;    the    colony   seal,   267 ;    the 
compact,  267;  first  execution,  267;    Pilgrim 
laws  and  chronicles,  268 ;   Burial   Hill,  268, 
276,  277,  278,  279;    the    harbor,  268,  269; 
names   of  the   settlement,  270  ;    why  it  was 
chosen,  271  ;  desolated  by  a  plague,  272,  273  ; 
French  make  the  first  landing,  274,  275 ;  oth-  \ 
er  settlements  called  Plymouth,  276;  Pilgrims'  i 
first  church,  278;   church  customs,  279,  280;  ! 
Leyden  Street,  283,  et  seq.;  the  town  in  1627,  j 
284;  Governor  Bradford's,  286 ;  Allyne  House, 
287 ;  Cole's  Hill,  288  ;  Plymouth  Rock,  289  ;  , 
the  Landing,  290,  291 ;   Samoset,  292 ;  entry 
of  Massasoit,  293,  294 ;   Clark's  Island,  295, 
et  seq.     See  article,  Clark's  Island,  Plymouth 
Beach,  296. 

Plymouth,  England,  270. 

Plum  Island,  421. 

Point  Judith,  357.     See  note. 

Point  of  Graves,  196,  202. 

Poore,  Ben  Perley,  mentioned,  22,  note. 

Popham,  Chief-justice,  efforts  to  colonize  New 
England,  93,  94. 

Popham,  George,  leader  of  the  colony  at  the 
Kennebec,  93  ;  death,  93. 

Popular  superstitions,  some  enumerated,  114. 

Porcupine  Islands,  43. 

Port  Royal  settled,  95. 

Port  St.  Louis.     See  Plymouth,  275. 

Pound,  Thomas,  a  pirate,  176. 

Poutrincourt,  Biencourt,  arrives  at  Port  Royal,  35. 

Poutrincourt,  Jean  de,  receives  Port  Royal  from 
De  Monts,  34 ;  his  fight  with  natives  at  Cape 
Cod,  308. 

Pownall,  Thomas,  builds  a  fort  on  the  Penob- 
scot,  66. 

Prior,  Matthew,  allowed  roast  beef  in  Lent,  314.  ' 

Provincetown,  described,  309-312 ;   Town  Hill,  I 
311 ;    cape    names,  312 ;    Portuguese   colony  I 
at,  312,  313 ;  fishery  of,  313,  et  seq. ;  whaling 
from,  315  ;  the  desert,  316  ;  cranberry  culture,  ! 
317;  walk  to  Race  Point,  316,  et  seq.;  the 
sand-avalanche,  319 ;   huts  of  refuge,  Herring 
Cove,  319 ;  the  terrible  winter  of  1874-75, 
320 ;  disasters  on  the  ocean  side,  321,  322. 

Prudence  Island,  380. 

Pure  has,  Samuel,  quoted,  24. 


Purgatory  Bluff,  383. 

Puritans  distinguished  from  Separatists,  280. 
Putnam,  General  Israel,  birthplace  of.  217;   la 
conic  letter  to  Governor  Try  on,  218. 

Q. 

Quakers  as  sailors.  339.     See  note,  401,  et  seq.  ; 

persecution  in  New  England,  402,  403  ;  burial 

customs,  404. 

Quincy,  Dorothy  (Madam  Hancock),  205. 
Quincy,  Josiah,  406. 
Quincy,  Judith,  357. 


Race  Point,  311,  319. 

Ramusio,  Giarnbetta,  map  cited,  21. 

Rasieres,  Isaac  de,  at  Plymouth,  278,  283. 

Razilly,  Isaac  de,  commands  in  Acadia,  77. 

Redwood,  Abraham,  367,  368.     See  note. 

Redwood  Library,  Newport,  368.     See  note. 

Revere,  Paul,  in  Penobscot  expedition,  68. 

Rhode  Island,  island  of,  407,  et  seq.;  Tonomy 
Hill,  407  ;  the  Glen,  408  ;  Prescott's  capture. 
409,  410 :  Talbot's  feat,  410, 411 ;  early  stages, 
411 ;  Lawton's  Valley,  412 ;  early  settlement 
of,  413,  414 ;  Revolutionary  earthworks  and 
history,  413,  414. 

Richmond's  Island,  369,  note. 

Rochambeau,  Count,  proposes  the  capture  of 
Penobscot,  71 ;  at  Newport,  388, 389, 390, 391. 

Rockland,  brief  sketch  of,  59,  60. 


S. 

Saco  Beach,  superstition  relative  to,  114. 

Saco  River,  on  Blauw's  map,  21  ;  Richard  Vines 
at,  133 ;  De  Monts  there,  154. 

Salem  in  1692,  220,  222 ;  old  witch  house,  223 ; 
Witch  Hill,  225 ;  hanging  the  condemned 
witches  at,  226;  formation  of  church  at,  281. 

Salem  Village,  witchcraft  at,  208,  et  seq. ;  the 
Witch  Ground,  213  ;  names  of  the  witch-find 
ers,  213,  note ;  their  motives  and  power,  214; 
humors  of  witchcraft,  215,  216. 

Salmon,  disappearance  of,  64. 

Saltonstall,  Captain,  commands  in  Penobscot  ex 
pedition,  68 ;  disagreement  with  General  Lov- 
ell,  69. 

Samoset,  sagamore  of  Pemaquid,  96,  264 ;  at 
Plymouth,  292,  293. 

Sandeyn,  Arthur,  256. 

Sankoty  Head,  354. 

Sargent,  Henry,  paints  "Landing  of  Pilgrims,'' 
264. 

Sassafras,  its  medicinal  virtues,  126. 

Savage  Rock,  probably  at  Cape  Ann,  120,  121. 


458 


INDEX. 


Say,  Lord,  proposes  to  emigrate  to  New  England, 
446. 

Saybrook,  441,  et  seq.;  Hart  mansion,  443;  old 
fortress  at  the  Point,  444 ;  settled,  445  ;  Crom 
well's  proposed  emigration  to,  446  ;  old  burial- 
place,  446,  447,  448. 

Scallop-shell,  its  historical  significance,  348. 

Schooner  Head,  a  visit  to,  46. 

Seabury,  Samuel,  Bishop,  425.  426.     See  note. 

Sedgwick,  Robert,  at  Pentagoet  and  Jamaica,  78. 

Selman,  John,  251. 

Sewall,  Samuel,  recants  his  belief  in  witchcraft, 
225. 

Sewall,  David,  136. 

Sheaffe,  Jacob,  151. 

Sherburne.     See  Nan  tucket. 

Shipwrecks:  the  Isidore,  117,  et  seq.;  on  Smut 
ty  Nose,  184 ;  the  Nottingham,  172,  173 ;  at 
Cape  Cod,  272 ;  the  General  Arnold,  296  ;  the 
James  Romrnell,  320,  321  ;  the  Giovanni,  321, 
322 ;  Essex,  of  Nantucket,  337. 

Siasconset,  Nantucket  Island,  visited,  350,  351, 
352. 

Siddons,  Sarah,  anecdote  of,.  376. 

Smibert,  John,  at  Newport,  384,  385.    See  note. 

Smith,  Captain  David,  316,  note. 

Smith,  John,  names  New  England,  20 ;  his  map, 
21 ;  mentions  Monhegan,  104 ;  monument, 
Star  Island,  167  ;  Appledore,  189  ;  account  of 
Cape  Cod,  307. 

Smutty  Nose  Island,  160,  175,  182. 

Somes's  Sound.  31,  et  passim. 

Somesville,  Mount  Desert,  30;  first  settlers  of,  33. 

Southack,  Cyprian,  his  chart,  308. 

Southworth,  Alice  (Carpenter),  284,  285. 

Sparhawk,  Harriet  Hirst,  147. 

Sparhawk,  William  (Pepperell),  147. 

Standish,  Miles,  his  sword,  266  ;  residence,  300 ; 
sketch  of,  301. 

Star  Island,  160,  162,  et  seq. 

Stephens,  Rev.  Josiah,  epitaph  of,  166. 

Steuben,  Baron,  arrival  at  Portsmouth,  207. 

Stevens,  General  Isaac  Ingalls,  401. 

Stiles,  Dr.  Ezra,  at  Newport,  304,  368. 

Story,  Elisha,  248. 

Story,  Joseph,  birthplace  of,  248. 

Stoughton,  William,  225. 

Stratford,  Earl  of,  204. 

Stuart,  Gilbert,  anecdote  of,  406. 

Sullivan,  John,  200,  note;  fights  a  battle  on 
Rhode  Island,  419.  See  note. 

Surriage,  Agnes,  marries  a  baronet,  256. 

T. 

Talbot,  Silas,  brilliant  achievement  of,  410,  411. 
Tarrantines,  their  country,  19,  24. 


Taunton  River,  414,  415,  416,  417. 

Temple,  Sir  Thomas,  renders  Fort  Pentagoet, 
74,  78. 

Ternay,  M.  de,  Admiral,  dies  at  Newport,  391. 

Thatcher,  James,  264,  note. 

Thaxter,  Celia  Laighton,  192. 

Thevet,  Andre,  cited,  19,  note. 

Thomaston,  Maine,  named,  60,  note. 

Thompson,  David,  at  Little  Harbor,  201. 

Totten,  General  Joseph  Gilbert,  builds  Fort  Ad 
ams,  378 ;  relations  with  General  Simon  Ber 
nard,  379. 

Touro,  Abraham,  366,  note,  367. 

Touro,  Judah,  367,  note. 

Trevett,  Samuel,  253. 

Truro,  Provincetown  part  of,  309. 

Tucke,  Rev.  John,  163,  166,  167. 

Tucker,  Samuel,  252. 

Tuckanuck  Island,  344.     See  note. 

U. 

Uncas,  fights  and   conquers  Miantonimo,  435 ; 

slays  birn,  436  ;  burial-place,  436  ;  friendship 

for  the  English,  437.     See  note. 
Underbill,  Nancy  J.,  death  at  Star  Island,  170, 

171. 

V. 

Vane,  Henry,  procures  a  pass  for  New  England, 
94,  413. 

Vaughan,  Colonel  William,  146. 

Verrazani,  Juan,  his  voyage,  20  ;  gives  New  En 
gland  a  Christian  name,  20. 

Vines,  Richard,  in  New  England,  133,  272. 

Vinton,  Rev.  Francis,  burial-place  of,  401. 

W. 

Wadsworth,  Peleg,  in  Penobscot  expedition,  68 ; 

kidnaped,  69 ;  escapes  from  Fort  George,  70, 

71. 

Wagner,  Louis,  138,  185,  186. 
Waldo,  Hannah,  marries  Thomas  Flucker,  61. 
Waldo  patent.     See  Muscongus  patent. 
Waldo,  Samuel,  sketch  of,  61. 
Wanton,  Joseph,  his  personal  appearance,  363, 

see  note ;  portrait  of,  368  ;  arrested,  405. 
Warren,  James,  originates  a  Revolutionary  junto, 

288. 
Warren,  Mercy,  her  history  of  the  Revolution, 

288. 

Washing-day  in  New  England,  inaugurated,  307. 
Washington,  George,  at  Kittery,  151 ;  at  Mar- 

blehead,  247 ;   disapproves  the  occupation  of 

Newport  'by  Rochambeau,  389 ;  at  Newport, 

391. 


INDEX. 


459 


Watch  Hill,  Rhode  Island,  420.     See  note. 

Webster,  Daniel,  residence  and  burial-place.  302. 

Wells,  Maine,  walks  in,  110 ;  beach  rambles,  111, 
112,  113. 

Wentworth,  Benning,  his  mansion,  Little  Harbor, 
203,  et  seq. 

Wentworth,  Frances  Deering,  206,  207. 

Wentworth,  Hon.  John,  202. 

Wentworth,  John,  202. 

Wentworth,  Sir  John,  sketch  of,  206,  207. 

Wentworth,  Colonel  Michael,  206,  note. 

Wentworth,  Samuel,  202. 

Wentworth,  Reginald,  201. 

Weymouth,  Captain  George.  See  note,  76 ;  ac 
counts  of  his  voyage,  92 ;  at  Monhegan  Isl 
and,  104, 105. 

Whale-fishery  in  New  England,  originates  at  Cape 
Cod,  315  ;  of  Nantucket,  331,  et  seq. 

Wheelwright,  John,  sketch  of  him,  110. 

White  Island,  160,  192. 


:  Whitefield,  George,  147. 

Williams,  Roger,  residence  of,  222  ;  on  Quakers, 

404,  413. 

|  Winslow,  General'John,  303. 
I  Winthrop,  John,  Jun.,  422,  423,  note. 

Witchcraft.     See  Salem  Village. 
;  Wood  End,  311. 

Wyllys,  Samuel,  buys  Plum  Island,  421. 

Y. 

Yale  College,  founded  at  Saybrook,  448,  449. 
Yankee,  disappearance  of  the,  442. 
\  York,  called  Boston,  21 ;   Cape  Neddock,  122 ; 
York  Beach,  127  ;  York  Harbor,  130 ;  histor 
ical   resume,  131;    indifferent   leputation   of. 
132;  meeting-house,  first  parish,  134  ;  old  jail. 
136;  Woodbridge's  tavern,  138;   Cider  Hill, 
138 ;  garrison-house,  139, 140 ;  Sewall's  bridge, 
141. 


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